School board debates high rate of principal turnover

LACONIA — With the departure of Laconia Middle School’s assistant principal at the end of this school year, every principal and assistant principal in the district will have departed their posts within the last two school years.

Members of the Laconia School Board debated at their meeting Tuesday whether this level of turnover should give them pause. Some board members thought they should examine why the district was losing valuable leaders en masse. Others, while praising those administrators, said the turnover was attributable to changing trends in education post-pandemic and indicative of the district's ability to produce desirable candidates.

“It really concerns me,” board member Dawn Johnson said, directing her comment toward Superintendent Steve Tucker. 

“You talk about retention and employee relations ... obviously, something is wrong in the district if we have taken tenured employees, tenured principals, and we're losing them in this district. Something is wrong.” 

Board members Jennifer Ulrich and Nick Grenon voiced their disagreement with that view.

“There's a lot of reasons why people leave jobs,” Ulrich said, adding she noticed many who left did so for a promotion. “I think that just speaks volumes for the quality of people that we have here, that they are hirable, and that there's other districts that are going to compete for them and want their talents.”

Landscape changes brought about by the pandemic, she continued, also had to be factored in. 

“It's a new world. And COVID changed and the pandemic changed so much about the way people prioritize their lives, the way they think about their careers and their jobs,” especially in the field of education, Ulrich said.

Grenon was quick to note that one of the vacancies, that of high school principal, was created when the former principal died of cancer in 2021. The interim replacement in that position departed earlier than expected in April, after his successor had been named. Additionally, Grenon said, one of the arriving elementary school principals, Eric Johnson, was actually returning to Laconia after a year in another district.

At the end of the 2021-22 school year, all three elementary school principals left the district. By the end of the current school year, both the principals and assistant principals — with the early assumption of duties by new Laconia High School Principal Lisa Hinds — at the middle and high school also were slated to leave or had left.

Middle school Principal Alison Bryant has been with the district since 2013, and her current position since 2016. Assistant Principal and Athletic Director Chrigus Boezeman will be principal at Merrimack Middle School next school year, after three years at LMS.

LHS Assistant Principal David Bartlett also held that title from 2013 until the start of the 2016-17 school year, when he was tapped as interim principal with McCollum’s then-departure. Bartlett joined McCollum at Concord’s Rundlett Middle School as assistant principal after a year as LHS principal. He returned to the LHS assistant principal job a year later.

At the time of then-Principal Bartlett’s departure, then-Superintendent Brendan Minnihan remarked in an interview with The Daily Sun about the growing challenge of principal retention. “It's getting harder and harder to hire and then retain high school principals,” Minnihan said in April 2017. 

While there was a recorded spike in principal turnover as the pandemic waned, researchers note there have been mixed levels of stabilization since, and post-pandemic data on principal attrition and turnover is sparse.

Board Chair Jennifer Anderson said in an interview Wednesday she is happy for administrators moving on to new positions and promotions, even if that means they are leaving Laconia, adding the district has “a lot of good people eager to join,” including “more than a dozen great applicants” for the high school assistant principal position.

When asked about whether the extraordinary volume of administrative turnover should be looked into by the board, she responded that three to five years in a principal or assistant principal position is normal and expected, and that, to her knowledge, each departing administrator had individual circumstances leading to their professional change.

“I understand the optics of it, but each case really is different,” Anderson emphasized. “Just because something is happening doesn’t mean that it’s a negative.”

Administrative vacancies have been a fraught subject for the district in the last year. 

Last spring, the contract nonrenewal of former Pleasant Street School Principal David Levesque divided the community and the board. A parent petition after that nonrenewal called for Tucker’s removal, accusing him of “bullying” and creating “a toxic work environment for many staff and administrators.” The district is currently appealing a Department of Labor ruling in favor of a former administrator. The case’s documentary evidence contradicted testimony by Tucker that he did not retaliate against her.

When asked about the level of recent turnover in an interview Wednesday, Tucker said, “I'm excited about the new staff that we've hired and happy for those who have taken on jobs to promote their futures.” 

The board’s discussion of turnover took place with Michael Boyle, who was later in the meeting confirmed as the new LHS assistant principal, seated in the audience. Boyle notched 12 years as a math teacher at Plymouth Regional High School, also serving as an academic coordinator and varsity football and baseball coach there. Tucker described Boyle as a “team player,” “level-headed” and “kid-centered.” Hinds added that Boyle had been a finalist in Plymouth, where he grew up and is a “hometown figure,” but chose to come to Laconia.

When his nomination was discussed by the board, Dunn spoke directly to Boyle in the audience:

“Please know that our district is fabulous. We are passionate about our students, our staff. It’s just phenomenal here. So I really welcome you.”