22 SA public schools started 2019 without a permanent principal

More than 20 of the state’s public schools have started 2019 without a tenured principal, in some cases because of a lack of suitable candidates.

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More than 20 of the state’s public schools have started 2019 without a tenured principal, in some cases because of a lack of suitable candidates.

Principals are calling for greater administrative support and for the growing burdens placed on schools to be reduced in order to make the job more attractive.

The majority of schools needing new leaders are primary — 16 of them — plus two area schools, two remote Aboriginal schools, Brighton Secondary School and Gawler and District College B-12. The vacancies are split between metro and regional locations.

The Education Department said turnover of principals was higher than normal last year because school leaders had filled the extra education director and “principal consultants” roles it had created.

The 154 principal jobs advertised represented 30 per cent of schools, when the normal turnover is about 20 per cent. The average of six applicants for each principal role was up from four-to-five in previous years.

Despite that rise in interest, the SA Primary Principals Association said some assistant and deputy principals remained reluctant to put their hands up for the top jobs.

President Angela Falkenberg said the high workload, increasingly aggressive parents and growing expectations that public schools deliver everything from sports teams to cyber safety were among the reasons.

“With the long hours it brings, it can be quite a lonely job. If you haven’t got someone to share the load or debrief with, that can be tricky,” she said.

“Some teachers have said ‘I don’t want to be that person down the track’.”

Ms Falkenberg said she had urged her members to try to “slow down the rapid fire of parent emails” and reduce parent expectation that every little issue needed instant response.

Education Department assistant director for people and culture operations Anne Kibble said: “We have high standards and there are some cases where a position has to be readvertised because the initial applicants don’t have the required experience and attributes. When that happens we will keep the tenured position open until we can attract someone with the right skills and abilities.”

Ms Kibble said the department had “a huge amount of confidence in our current leaders but we are conscious of the need to build depth”, including through its Future Leaders Initiative that has had 86 participants since late 2017.

In the past year, nine of those won principal roles and five won preschool director jobs.

The department said most tenured vacancies were filled by September but retirements, resignations and promotions necessitated temporary stand-ins who were “capable, qualified people”, often a school’s deputy principal.

Playford Primary principal Dean Clark died in a car crash in December. His position will not be advertised until Term 2 “to give the students and community time to settle following their loss”, the department said.

SA schools without a principal

Adelaide

Blackwood Primary School

Hackham East Primary School

Fairview Park Primary School

Salisbury North R-7 School

Settlers Farm Campus R-7

Forbes Primary School

Playford Primary School*

Lenswood Primary School

Brighton Secondary School

Gawler and District College B-12

*Playford principal Dean Clark died in a car crash in December.

Regional

Angaston Primary School

Andamooka Primary School

Fisk Street Primary School (Whyalla Norrie)

Hincks Avenue Primary School (Whyalla Norrie)

Rapid Bay Primary School

Cadell Primary School

Loxton Primary School

Bordertown Primary School

Koonibba Aboriginal School

Kenmore Park Anangu School

Orroroo Area School

Cummins Area School