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After 6 principals in 10 years, Pittsburgh Westinghouse looks to earn back students' trust

Students on steps of historic school building.
Alayna Hutchinson
/
90.5 WESA
A WESA analysis found Pittsburgh Westinghouse is one of eight schools across the district to be led by five or more different principals in the past decade.

Walking from classroom to classroom, Westinghouse Academy 6-12 principal Virginia Hill gets in well over 10,000 steps a day.

As she walks from the school’s hallways, Hill greets each of her students by calling them “friend”.

“I want to treat people's children the way I expect my children to be treated,” she said.

Hill started as Westinghouse’s principal in February of this year, though it’s not her first time inside the historic school. Hill, her mother and grandfather all graduated from Westinghouse.

She said serving her alma mater has been both a homecoming and the pinnacle of her career.

“But they're waiting for me to leave because that's what principals at Westinghouse do,” she said.

Westinghouse students have seen five principals come and go in the last decade, while most other schools in the district had just one or two principals leave during that same time. Hill is the sixth principal to take on the school's top role.

A WESA analysis of Pittsburgh Public Schools’ building leadership found Westinghouse was one of eight schools across the district led by five or more different principals in the past decade. Nearly all of those buildings serve mostly Black and low-income students, which mirrors trends in principal turnover and attrition statewide.

With all the changes at Westinghouse, Hill said her students have lost trust in their school leaders.

“Leadership is a relationship, make no mistake about it,” Hill said. “Even teachers — nobody wants to connect with you if they know you're leaving them.”

According to Hill, some teachers feel the district hasn’t made an effort to keep a principal at Westinghouse, located in a neighborhood transformed by disinvestment and the war on drugs. More than 90% of Westinghouse students last school year came from low-income households.

Hill said she now wants to bring Westinghouse and the surrounding community of Homewood a level of stability. Nearly a year into her time as principal, Hill said students are now beginning to trust her intent to stay there.

“I want to be here every day. I want to be here so that they see me,” Hill said. “That builds trust and consistency, and I think that's what some of our Westinghouse folks haven't had.”

Why principals leave

Principal attrition in Pennsylvania is the highest it's been in recent years, meaning more principals are leaving their positions than ever recorded, and principals nationally are reporting high levels of burnout.

Roughly 1 in 10 public school principals nationwide left the profession between the 2020-21 and 2021-22 school years, driven away by poor working conditions, inadequate preparation and professional development, and disagreements with district leadership.

The latter is something Hill, who took a four-year break from PPS before returning to lead Westinghouse, is candid about. Following 27 years with the district, she departed PPS in 2020 after one year as principal of Milliones U-Prep, a 6-12 school in the Hill District with a student body demographically similar to Westinghouse.

Hill called the decision to leave the district after that position a “divorce”.

“At the time, the administration that was in place and myself, we were on two different pages as far as my leadership style and what I had to offer,” Hill later told WESA. “I felt that it would be best at that moment to go.”

A Black woman sits at a desk with a laptop and multiple monitors.
Jillian Forstadt
/
90.5 WESA
Virginia Hill started as Westinghouse’s principal in February of this year, though it’s not her first time inside the historic school. She said serving her alma mater has been both a homecoming and the pinnacle of her career.

In May 2021, Hill co-signed an op-ed calling for a change in district leadership. Then-superintendent Anthony Hamlet resigned a few months later, but the piece deemed the organizational culture during that era “toxic” and a place that “alienates experienced and talented personnel.”

“Staying outweighed — in a detrimental way — my ability to be effective,” she added.

Michael Calvert left the district during that same era, frustrated by a bureaucracy that had become more difficult to navigate seven years into his time as a principal at PPS than when he started.

While he didn’t feel like his work as principal of Morrow PreK-8 in Brighton Heights was finished, Calvert said he couldn’t refuse an offer from the South Allegheny School District that would allow him more autonomy.

“When someone gave me the opportunity, ‘Hey, you're going get a better title, you're going to get maybe a little more money and we're going to do away with the bureaucracy and trust you to do your job,’ I was all in,” said Calvert, who now serves as South Allegheny’s director of elementary education.

The principalship is a demanding job at any school, with long hours and often conflicting pressures from district administrators, teachers and parents. It’s all the more challenging for principals at schools in high-poverty areas, where hunger, trauma and a lack of resources can serve as barriers to learning.

Disparities in principal turnover based on students’ socioeconomic background were especially pronounced where there are older students. PPS high schools and 6-12 buildings that served more than 80% economically disadvantaged students saw six or more principals during the last decade, while schools where less than 50% of economically disadvantaged students attend had just two or three.

Darrel Prioleau, principal of Perry Traditional Academy on the North Side from 2018 to 2020, has since moved on to a high school in Maryland more than three times the size of Perry. Prioleau said, despite that difference, the demands of his job at Perry were far greater due to the needs of his students there.

Of Perry’s 430 students, 75% are Black, 88% are economically disadvantaged and nearly 30% receive special education services.

“Students come with different luggage, and the luggage that was being brought into our schools [on the North Side] on a daily basis was crazy,” Prioleau said. “Just the things that kids did to survive don't compare.”

Prioleau said he was committed to his students and staff at Perry, and before that at Morrow, where he served as principal for three years before district leadership reassigned him to Perry. But he said his loyalty couldn’t come before his health and sanity.

“The experience was great. It was just that it's wear and tear when you're so committed and dedicated to the job,” he said.

Finding balance and support

After leaving Milliones 6-12, Hill went on to spend a few years at Environmental Charter School, where she served a high school principal, head of K-5 academics and interim chief operating officer.

Hill said she returned to PPS partially due to good timing and Westinghouse’s personal significance. Hill’s husband, who passed away during the pandemic, attended the school as well.

“This seemed like a great way to also honor his memory as well, to come back here,” Hill said.

But she also attributed her change of heart to the district’s change in leadership. Current superintendent Wayne Walters was Hill’s colleague and the principal of her children’s school.

“I've walked alongside him, behind him as a parent as well as a colleague for a lot of years,” Hill said. “And our district has gone in a different direction, so I felt it was a safe time to come back.”

A wooden door with "principal" written o the frosted glass window.
Jillian Forstadt
/
90.5 WESA

Hill said she now has the support she needs from teachers and administrators to do her job well and set healthy boundaries, allowing her to both meet the needs of her students and her own family.

She “charges her battery” by running a mile each morning, and de-stresses by making time for “some mindless comedy” at the end of each day.

“Because sometimes everything is so serious and so dramatic,” Hill said. “I just want to have time to laugh.”

For many principals, that balance isn’t always easy to come by. Hill said she tries to counsel younger administrators who are “putting it all on the table” to help them avoid burnout.

PPS offers new principals coaching, support and collaboration through a three-year induction program, and school leaders meet regularly in small groups to share ideas and best practices. But there hasn’t been an investment in principal development comparable to the full-year mentorship program the district offered to aspiring school leaders back in the mid-2000s.

The Pittsburgh Emerging Leadership Academy, modeled after a medical residency and funded by a Los Angeles foundation, was how assistant superintendent Shawn McNeil started at PPS. He shadowed now-superintendent Wayne Walters for a full year at Frick 6-8, now the district’s Science and Technology Academy (SciTech).

“That was essential to my success moving into a principal position,” McNeil said.

McNeil went on to lead SciTech for many years before joining central administration as the head of professional development districtwide. He said administrators strive to give principals on-site support, though more resources are needed to prepare and build the bench of aspiring principals.

“So that we can make sure those who are aspiring to become principals have that opportunity to really be mentored,” McNeil said.

Leaning on community

Many principals have found a supportive network with their school’s community partners. Faison K-5 principal Russell Patterson works with Homewood Children’s Village to meet students’ needs beyond the classroom: the school and its partners have brought in a food pantry, clothing closet and washer and dryer to make sure all students have access to clean clothes.

Last school year, 95% of Faison students came from economically disadvantaged households. Patterson said his school’s relationship with Homewood Children’s Village, which runs the community school site at Faison, allows him to stay afloat amid the weight of the community’s needs.

Patterson is one of nine PPS principals to lead their school for the last 10 years or longer.

“If I didn't have other ways to support [Faison], that would be really, really challenging. And I think that would probably increase the burnout,” said Patterson.

His long-term stay at Faison has allowed the community partnership to bloom, he added, and in turn has allowed him to maintain a stable presence at the school.

A Black man smiles while sitting at a desk covered by school supplies.
Jillian Forstadt
/
90.5 WESA
Faison K-5 principal Russell Patterson shares the load with community partners like Homewood Children’s Village.

Homewood Children’s Village also runs community school sites at Westinghouse and Lincoln K-5, where Hill was principal until 2018.

While the organization has worked with Westinghouse leaders to support students through periods of instability, CEO Walter Lewis said the constantly rotating leadership has made it difficult to execute new programs long-term.

“So many of the challenges we see are not for lack of effort or lack of good ideas, but if you're constantly changing leadership and constantly change the strategy, you never really give anything a chance to succeed,” Lewis said.

Lewis empathizes with principals who have come into Westinghouse and quickly burned out trying to mitigate the decades of disinvestment, food insecurity and poverty affecting Homewood students.

“We know that it's a difficult job and we know that folks are not going to be able to do this alone, at least not successfully and not for a long time,” he said.

Building trust and longevity

Research shows that principal turnover is linked to a decline in school outcomes, both from the disruption of the turnover and the transition to new leadership. Frequent changes are also found to hurt teacher retention.

Some studies show that principal turnover negatively impacts school climate and student achievement, and successive changes — like those at Westinghouse — only compound those effects.

“I think sometimes people forget how important stability is for students and kids and how it affects them when they don't know who they're going to see, who they're going to turn to,” said Westinghouse Assistant Principal Tenille Thomas.

Thomas stuck with the school through multiple leadership transitions and has seen their impact on students. She said Hill’s presence has shifted the atmosphere at the school for the better, giving students someone they can trust wants to be there and love them in the days to come.

Hill said she plans to stay at Westinghouse until retirement, which is more than a few years away.

“It's just an honor to be able to retire from my school and so I'm just thankful to be here,” Hill said. “I'll be here for a while.”

Jillian Forstadt is an education reporter at 90.5 WESA. Before moving to Pittsburgh, she covered affordable housing, homelessness and rural health care at WSKG Public Radio in Binghamton, New York. Her reporting has appeared on NPR’s Morning Edition.
Alayna Hutchinson is a Fall 2024 newsroom intern at 90.5 WESA and recent graduate of Temple University's Master of Journalism program. Originally from Western Pennsylvania, she worked for several years in Washington, D.C. in public relations and education before deciding to pursue journalism.