Perspective | The principal and the person
The unseen weight and enduring hope of leading our schools
What do we call those extra minutes we spend sitting in our cars before walking into the school building or heading into our homes in the evening?
Is it a moment to regroup? To catch our breath? To steady ourselves? Or simply to enjoy the beauty of silence, when, for just a moment, no one needs an answer and no decision is waiting with our name on it?
My family says I zone out before coming inside, which may capture it most eloquently.
Perhaps those few quiet minutes capture something deeply human about this work: the need for a little space between being everything you can be in one place and being everything you are called to be in another.
In the car, we can let our shoulders drop. We can acknowledge what was hard, gather our thoughts, or sit without having to explain anything at all. We join the rest of the world in laughing at reels; we can just be!
Too often, our own needs wait for these little slivers of the day to surface. We use them to gather ourselves so we can offer patience, guidance, comfort, and love to the people who matter so dearly to us — in our buildings, in our communities, and, most preciously, in our homes, but when do we offer it to ourselves?
This Principal Appreciation Month, I want us to notice those quiet minutes, too. They remind us that the person caring for so many people needs care as well.
The last meeting may be over. The building may finally be quiet. But the candle is still burning at both ends.
There is a student to check on tomorrow. A teacher whose voice sounded different today. A family waiting for an email. A difficult conversation to revisit. Your children need help with homework. A friend needs your advice. An aging parent needs a call. A spouse needs a partner. Someone needs dinner, a ride, reassurance, or simply our undivided attention.
Before we leave the car, we take those moments to exist.
This October, as we recognize Principal Appreciation Month, I hope we remember to see the person behind the position.
As North Carolina’s 2026 Principal of the Year, I have the privilege of celebrating the extraordinary work happening in our public schools. With that privilege comes a responsibility to speak honestly about the people leading them.
This honor has made me even more aware of how much remarkable leadership happens without a spotlight. Across our state, principals serve their communities through moments that will never appear in an award, a school report card, or a photograph.
They deserve to be celebrated. They also deserve to be understood. They deserve to be seen for the person, not just the position.
Beneath the surface of the school day
Most people can name something a principal does.
We greet students, visit classrooms, lead meetings, answer questions, and attend school events. We support teachers, address concerns, review data, and help shape the conditions in which learning happens. Other times we take on “other duties as assigned,” which can be a nurse, coach, bus driver, traffic director, wardrobe stylist, and just about as many other things you can imagine.
Those responsibilities are visible. They are the tip of the iceberg.
Beneath the iceberg is the preparation, judgment, reflection, emotional energy, and responsibility that make those moments possible.
Yes, a calm response may follow a difficult conversation. A reassuring smile may come from your neighborhood principal carrying a concern they cannot share. A school day that appears uneventful may reflect hours of private strategy, sleepless nights, and hundreds of problems addressed before they became visible to anyone else.
Of course we think about data, instruction, academic growth, and whether students feel safe enough to take a risk in class. We think about staffing and whether the teacher covering one more responsibility has anything left to give. We think about attendance and what might be happening in the life of the child who has stopped coming. We think about parents doing their best. We think about the expectations our supervisors and districts charge us to uphold. We think about the future of our students, our schools, our communities, and our work.
These responsibilities rarely arrive one at a time.
A principal can switch from celebrating a student’s achievement to addressing a safety concern, supporting a frustrated staff member, and discussing instructional improvement within the same morning — sometimes within the same hour. Each situation deserves attention. Each person deserves care, and purposeful principals make sure each person gets just that: attention, intention, and presence.
The emotional transitions are as demanding as the tasks themselves.
There is also the weight of what cannot be fully explained publicly. Confidentiality sometimes requires us to remain quiet while others fill that silence with assumptions and judgements. Principals should be accountable. Families deserve communication. Staff deserve clarity. Students deserve fairness. Yet the full story is not always ours to tell.
Living with that tension is part of the unseen work, part of the emotional iceberg.
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When everyone turns to you
Across North Carolina, amazing leaders are walking into schools every single day. At my school, we believe every student possesses unique gifts and talents that naturally inspire their own leadership. I know I am not alone in recognizing and growing the gifts of North Carolina’s brightest stars. Students across our state rely on a strong principal to create access and pathways for their future.
That work calls us to be instructional leaders. It also calls us to be someone people can come to.
A teacher needs feedback after a lesson does not go as planned. A parent brings a concern that has kept them awake. A student needs help finding her way through a mistake. A staff member closes the office door because something difficult is happening at home.
Sometimes the question is about a schedule or a school procedure. Sometimes, beneath the question, is something much more human: Will you listen? Can you help? Will you make space and time? Are we going to be OK?
Principals are asked to respond to both.
We work alongside extraordinary teams of families, teachers, counselors, assistant principals, office staff, and other professionals. Their care and expertise make our schools possible.
Still, there is a particular responsibility that comes with being the principal. When a situation becomes especially difficult, people turn toward us for guidance, direction, and reassurance. When things go right, we all win, but when things do not go well, it goes to the principal.
We may still be gathering information. We may need guidance ourselves. We may be feeling the same uncertainty everyone else is feeling.
But still we must take the next step.
Being trusted in that way is a privilege. It also requires emotional energy that is easy to overlook. Listening closely, choosing words carefully, remaining composed, and helping others feel secure all require a withdrawal from the person doing them.
Sometimes, after a day of being available to everyone, we struggle to find the words to explain what we need ourselves.
Behind every principal holding a school together is a person who deserves to be held up, too.
— Dr. Mariah Walker, 2026 North Carolina Principal of the Year
The principal goes home, but the person keeps going
I am a principal. I am also a wife, a mother, a daughter, a sister, and a friend. And I am also me.
The people I love need my attention, laughter, patience, and presence. I want to give them those things fully.
Principals across North Carolina and the United States also know that desire.
We are mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, daughters and sons, aunts and uncles. We are spouses, partners, friends, and caregivers. We carry many of the same responsibilities as the families we serve.
We are raising children while helping to care for the children in our communities. We are navigating family challenges, health, appointments, household responsibilities, stress, relationships, and the beautifully complex complications of being human.
The title does not exempt us from any of it.
Sometimes a principal leaves a school event and heads to a second job. Sometimes the person who spent the day reassuring others goes home with worries of their own. Sometimes we make it to our child’s game just as it ends. Sometimes we miss something we wanted very much to attend for a best friend. Sometimes we are physically home while our thoughts remain in a conversation we wish had ended differently. Sometimes we go to bed thinking about everything waiting for us at school tomorrow.
There is an ever so dull ache in that divided attention. There is an emotional weight in the dichotomy of role-switching that many principals experience daily.
In my doctoral work, I explored the post-COVID-19 experiences of women in secondary school leadership, including the expectations surrounding leadership, caregiving, and the pressure to remain strong through difficult circumstances. Those questions were deeply personal to me as a woman, a mother, and a principal, but these challenges are not limited to women.
The “superhero” expectation gives language to something many of us recognize: the pressure to be capable, composed, available, and effective across every part of life.
Being seen as strong can be affirming. It can also make it harder for others to recognize when support is needed. When everyone sees a leader as strong, there is often very little room for error, assistance, or support. The superman-hero at work is rewarded for heroism, not for recognizing their kryptonite.
These human experiences of school leadership deserve attention within a broader truth: Principals of every background have lives that need care beyond their school communities.
We need room to be honest about that.
We need to be able to say, “I care deeply about this work, but I am still human.”
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Holding hope
One of the least visible responsibilities of a principal is carrying inspiration.
We help a discouraged teacher remember their impact. We encourage a student to imagine a future beyond right now. We ask a school community to believe in what is possible while working through what is hard.
That responsibility continues through criticism, misunderstanding, and exhaustion.
It can be painful to hear sweeping judgments about public schools when we know the names, faces, and effort behind the work. We know the teacher who kept trying until a student understood. We know the staff member who noticed a child had grown unusually quiet. We know the family whose partnership helped turn a difficult year around.
We also know where our schools must improve. Leading requires us to face those needs honestly and bring people together to address them.
Hope helps us do both.
At my own school, I see it in young women learning to trust their voices. I see it when a student accepts a leadership opportunity she once would have avoided, asks a question she once would have kept to herself, or begins describing her future with growing confidence.
Purposeful joy was another idea I explored in my dissertation work, and it continues to shape how I think about leadership. Joy deserves our attention even during demanding seasons. It can be found in meaningful relationships, in growth we almost missed, and in remembering why we chose this work. Intentional joy allows us to lean into purpose. Leaning into purpose allows us to find significance in the work.
Purposeful joy is the laughter in the hallway. The teacher excited to share what finally worked. The student who returns to tell you what happened next. The parent who says, “We did it.”
We carry pride, affection, gratitude, and stories that remind us of the good unfolding in our schools. Those experiences help sustain us.
Principals, purposeful joy is also found in friendships with one another, shared understanding. It is found in the presence of our own families. It is found in rest and in interests that have nothing to do with our job titles. We need opportunities to be joyful, and we cannot wait for them to find us.
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Beyond Appreciation Month
A thoughtful note matters. So does a kind message, a shared meal, or a specific expression of gratitude.
Please tell your principal when something they did made a difference. They may have no idea that you noticed. Then let that appreciation shape how we support school leaders throughout the year.
For families and community members, that can mean approaching a difficult conversation with curiosity, seeking clarification before assuming intent, and allowing space for a thoughtful response.
For those who supervise and support principals, it can mean examining workloads, examining district-level initiatives that can be modified to support lifting at the Central Service level, providing useful coaching, and ensuring leaders have access to people and resources that help them solve difficult problems. It can also mean creating opportunities for purposeful joy.
Mentoring matters. Trusted professional relationships matter. Having a place to ask a question without feeling that uncertainty will be mistaken for incompetence matters.
So does sharing responsibility.
A principal’s commitment cannot substitute indefinitely for adequate staffing, clear expectations, clear focus, or meaningful support. Encouraging principals to care for themselves must be accompanied by working conditions that make that care possible and foster belonging.
We should be able to celebrate dedication without underscoring exhaustion as its measure.
Principals also need one another. We need conversations that move beyond schedules, deadlines, and updates. We need colleagues who can ask, “How are you doing?” and make room for an honest answer.
Strong professional communities give principals somewhere to bring the questions we cannot ask just anywhere. They help us gain perspective, establish boundaries, and remember that needing support is part of being human.
To the person behind the principal
To my fellow principals across North Carolina:
I know there are parts of your work that will never appear in an evaluation.
I know there are people beyond your school doors who need you, too.
You are allowed to seek support. You are allowed to rest. You are allowed to experience joy that belongs entirely to your life outside of school.
You do not have to reach the point of burnout and exhaustion before your needs deserve attention.
Serving as North Carolina Principal of the Year is an honor, but standing alongside you gives me purpose. I am proud to represent a profession filled with people who continue to care, learn, and lead through circumstances that are more complicated than they appear.
Yes, this month, I hope you feel celebrated for your leadership and cared for as a person, but I hope it extends beyond 31 days!
And to our families, communities, and education partners: Please see your principal for more than the role.
Look beneath the surface of the school day. Recognize the weight behind each decision, the preparation behind a smooth morning, and the care behind a difficult conversation.
Then remember the person who eventually gathers their belongings, walks to the parking lot, drives to their next location, and sits for just a few minutes to soak in the moments before the next shift begins.
Somewhere, someone else is waiting for them.
May our appreciation make room for that person, not just the position.