Perspective | Leading beyond the principal’s office

Don’t ask Patrick Greene, principal of Greene Central High School in Snow Hill, about school dress codes.

“I hate them!” he said with a laugh.

But ask him about the things that really matter — creating opportunity for students, building a school culture where teachers want to stay, helping young people find their passion — and he lights up.

In just six years, Greene led Greene Central out of low-performing status and into the top 10% statewide for student growth, earning the school North Carolina’s prestigious Model STEM School designation.

A few hours west in Mooresville, Principal Carrie Tulbert asks elementary schoolers to take a “no-pick pledge” — a commitment not to pick their noses — before heading down the hall to a glow-stick math party.

The energy at Tulbert’s school, Lakeshore STEM Elementary School, is joyful and intentional. Though Tulbert is new to Lakeshore, she’s in her 15th year as a principal, and she is an expert at building school cultures where teachers feel supported, families feel connected, and kids are excited to learn.

Greene and Tulbert are at different schools in different towns, and they lead with different styles. But they share something important: both were named North Carolina Principal of the Year.

And today, they are part of the NC Principal of the Year Network, a growing community of school leaders using their voice and expertise to champion and strengthen North Carolina’s local public schools.

A platform for service and advocacy

Being named Principal of the Year by the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction (DPI) is an enormous honor and comes with several perks.

Chief among them is the opportunity to serve as an adviser to the State Board of Education, the body that makes policies and decisions that affect thousands of principals and more than a million students.

“At the first state board meeting I attended, they were resetting the way principal salaries were done,” recalled Greene. “There were 400 principals statewide who had led their schools through COVID, and those leaders were set to take a pay cut based on student data. So of course I had to open my mouth. I explained to the board: These principals have mortgages, they’re putting their kids through college, and they’ve just led their schools through a traumatic time. Cutting their pay is unfair.”

Greene found that his perspective was valuable to decision-makers. They not only heard him out but asked him to serve on several working groups and committees, including one that partnered with DPI to come up with a better principal pay solution.

Greene embraced this new role. “I’m a strong believer that when leaders put faces to policies, they understand impacts on people,” he said.

Tulbert experienced something similar during her year of service.

“Having primarily worked in the Charlotte area, for me to go to Camden County and learn about their challenges with teacher recruitment, and how they have to compete with Virginia, or to understand the challenges school leaders are facing in Rutherford County, all of this made me a better advocate,” she said.

The experience gave both leaders a broader understanding of the opportunities and challenges facing public schools across North Carolina and a desire to keep contributing.

But once their formal Principal of the Year service ended, so did the official platform that connected them to statewide advocacy and policy discussions.

In speaking with other former Principals of the Year, Greene realized many felt the same way. They wanted to continue serving as advocates for public school students, teachers, and leaders across North Carolina at a time when public education faced growing challenges and needed experienced voices at the table.

So in 2023, former Principals of the Year gathered in Asheville for a retreat to explore what it might look like to stay connected and engaged beyond their formal year of service. That’s how the NC Principal of the Year Network was born.

Today, the growing initiative brings together current and former Principals of the Year to market the success stories of public education, strengthen principal leadership and retention, and advocate for public schools and school leaders across North Carolina.

A collective voice for public education

In February 2026, dozens of school leaders gathered in Arapahoe, a quiet, rural town in Pamlico County, for a daylong learning session on leadership with the NC Principal of the Year Network.

The attendees were engaged and excited to learn from the eight former Principals of the Year who led the session. The group had already covered how to lead with courage, ignite instructional excellence, and take care of your well-being. The next topic was “pathways to partnership,” and Greene was preaching.

“School choice isn’t going away,” he said. “We need to learn how to market our schools to our families and communities.”

Decades ago, North Carolina’s public schools didn’t need marketing.

State leaders invested in resources and reforms to ensure every child in our state had access to an excellent public education. The system wasn’t perfect, but almost all NC families sent their kids to public school. For details on NC’s public education history, check out EdNC’s North Carolina’s Choice.

But in today’s era of school choice, marketing is a necessity.

When parents sign up their kids for kindergarten today, they’re faced with myriad choices: traditional public schools; magnet schools, which are public but offer specialized programs; charter schools, which are publicly funded but operate independently; and private schools, where tuition is now subsidized even for NC’s wealthiest families through the state’s Opportunity Scholarship program.

“Those private and charter schools have whole marketing teams,” Greene told the school leaders in Arapahoe.

Because of North Carolina’s public school funding model, when families choose charter or private schools over their local public school, the public school system loses funding. That has negative repercussions across communities and the state.

Greene was quick to point out that most students in NC — 84% as of July 2026 — attend public school, but it’s on public school leaders and advocates to communicate why public schools are still the best choice.

“Amazing things are happening in our schools,” he said, “but that’s not what makes the news. If we don’t tell our story, then somebody else will.”

Greene is a great model for how to do this. He described how at Greene Central High School, where he is principal, they offer hands-on technical classes in addition to advanced academics.

This combination of courses is invaluable for students, Greene explained.

“If you want to be an engineer, you also have to know how electrical wiring works,” he said. “You can get all of that at Greene Central.”

The network’s work extends beyond helping principals communicate with families. It also seeks to ensure that policymakers understand the realities facing students, educators, and schools.

“Education should be purple,” Greene said. “No matter how you vote, you want your kid to have a great school. You want your kid to have an awesome teacher. You want your kid to be safe.”

“I don’t think decision-makers wake up and rub their hands together and say, ‘Ooh, I’m ready to dismantle public education today!’ I think they have a different point of view based on their experience,” he continued. “So we’ve done a lot of storytelling to humanize what they’re doing — when you pass this law or this policy, these are the people it affects and how it affects them.”

Tulbert agreed. “We want to educate decision-makers about the positive realities of what’s happening in our schools today,” she said, “so our schools can be funded more appropriately, and our state will see the continued positive repercussions of that.”

Supported leaders, better schools, better system

In addition to promoting positive stories of public education, the network is also quietly tackling one of the most urgent challenges facing North Carolina schools: keeping highly effective school leaders in the job.

“Supporting principals is one of the most overlooked levers for strengthening public schools,” Greene said. “Research shows kids’ access to a high-quality teacher is the number one factor that makes them successful. Number two is their principal.”

But public school leaders need more support to be able to serve every student. The network aims to meet those needs by providing group learning opportunities for principals and advocating for solutions that would allow principals to thrive in their roles long-term.

The Network has convened public school principals in communities across North Carolina, from Cherokee in the far west to Arapahoe in the far east. These gatherings create opportunities for school leaders to connect, learn from one another, and build the relationships needed to sustain them in a demanding profession.

On the advocacy front, Greene reported that the network has been busy trying to ensure that North Carolina is not just the No. 1 state for business but the No. 1 state for education — “so people want to continue to do business here,” he said.

One concrete solution from the network is a highly researched Principal Working Conditions Survey, which would complement the Teacher Working Conditions Survey. The teacher survey is often cited as a key piece of data to understand how schools are functioning, and the principal survey would add critical context and illuminate ways the state can better support school leaders.

On the policy front, the Network is also advocating to ensure principal pay is determined in a fair and equitable way, and that the North Carolina state budget includes adequate funding for public schools that would cover support staff, teacher pay raises, mental health counselors and more.

“We look to schools for so many things,” Greene said. “We need a state budget that reflects that.”

Staying at the table

For Tulbert, the Network is ultimately about service.

“When I was Principal of the Year, I had a platform to serve the state in a different way,” she said. “When that year ends, your commitment to students, teachers, and public education doesn’t end. The network gives us a way to continue that work together.”

That work takes many forms. Sometimes it means helping principals build stronger school cultures. Sometimes it means sharing the successes of public schools with families and policymakers. Sometimes it means advocating for the resources educators need to do their jobs well.

But at its core, the goal is simple: ensuring that every North Carolina student has access to a great public school.

“When we’re advocating for public education, we’re really advocating for the future of our communities,” Tulbert said. “The experiences students have in our schools shape everything that comes after. If we can help school leaders thrive, the ripple effects extend far beyond any one building.”

For Greene, that’s why the network matters.

“The title of Principal of the Year lasts for a year,” he said. “The responsibility to serve doesn’t.”

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Editor’s note: The Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation supports the work of EducationNC, and EdNC’s CEO and Editor-in-Chief Mebane Rash serves on its board.