Fragmentation, Administration, and Isolation? Evidence on Principal Time Use from Large-Scale Observations in Four Urban Districts

Purpose: We describe urban school principals’ time use, including their time allocation across work tasks and locations, and how time use varies by school context. Research Method: Trained observers recorded leaders’ time use in five-minute increments over full school days in four urban school districts. The full sample included approximately 650 daylong observations. We employed descriptive methods and linear regression to describe patterns in time use within and across districts. Findings: Patterns in typical time use were surprisingly similar across districts. The average principal spent nearly a quarter of the workday on administrative tasks, crowding out time on instruction, relationships, and other task domains. Time allocations were fragmented, with frequent task-switching throughout the day. Principals spent more time in their offices than anywhere else and nearly half their days working alone, on average. Principals also spent an unexpectedly high proportion of their days (nearly 20%) in the presence of students. Principals at higher-achieving schools spent more time on relationships, and time spent on safety and discipline was positively associated with the share of Black students in a school. Implications: Our study echoes some themes established in studies of principal time use five decades ago. Despite calls for school leaders to reorient their work towards classroom instruction, urban principals’ time on administration and alone in their offices remains high, their time on instruction is limited, and their time continues to be fragmented. These conclusions hold across district settings. Substantial reallocation of principal time in urban schools likely takes investing in both structural changes and tools to help principals disrupt well-established time investment patterns. At the same time, context matters, and time use differences across schools with different characteristics suggest a need to prepare and support principals to meet diverse time demands at different schools even within the same district.