The Costs of Diversifying the Principal Workforce: Black Jobs, Black Principal(ing) and Sustainability

Darrius Stanley ^*

• University of Minnesota Twin Cities, St. Paul, United States

In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic ushered in one of most interruptive events in the history of American education. K -12 public school operations were fundamentally ruptured in several ways (e.g., distance learning, online professional development, meal deliveries). Particularly, our schools' approaches to teaching, learning, and leading were dramatically reconsidered and reorganized to meet the demands of that time. This turbulence specifically ushered in a catastrophic fracturing of Black lives (Horsford et al., 2021). Beyond the seemingly insurmountable health crisis, we also experienced the latest iteration of Black public death(s) and dehumanization; this calamity was compounded by the surfacing of technological inaccessibility among historically disenfranchised communities, exacerbating entrenched access issues to quality education. The pandemic severely pressed an educational system to respond in ways it had not been properly prepared to. When the smoke seemed to clear, instead of taking this opportunity to reset the system (Ladson Billings, 2021), districts began reinstating some of the old norms and inadequate policies of past iterations of American schooling. Given the history of American schooling for Black people, Ladson-Billings (2021) explains that schools' hastiness to return to normal was/is a process that all but secures continued Black suffering. However, this time, it was slightly different in some district contexts. As a response to the increased awareness of Black public death, districts brought in neoliberal equity sensibilities and initiatives (e.g., rise of equity directors, hiring Black and Brown educators/leaders) (Lewis et al., 2023).School closures, white flight to outer-ring suburbs and private schools, Covid-related displacements of communities, and increases in school choice options (e.g., open enrollment) mean that some historically white school districts would experience significant shifts in the racial makeup of their schools. Especially in "liberal" state and local contexts, districts responded to