Corrected: A previous version of this article incorrectly identified where Sonja Trainor works. She is the executive director of the National School Attorneys Association.
Mabelle Glithero and Carlotta Love, two assistant principals, had heard the murmurs about an impending union for school leaders for over a decade. Yet administrators in the 36,000-student Sweetwater Union high school district in San Diego never got close to forming one—until now.
“No one looked up any information or did any research, but all that changed with the pandemic,” Love said. “We got the jolt we needed.”
School leaders like Glithero and Love found themselves putting in extra work during the pandemic without any of the “hazard pay” that administrators in neighboring school districts, like Chula Vista and San Diego Unified, were getting. The difference, according to the pair, was that those administrators were unionized and had bargained for specific protections and compensation. Having a principals’ union, Love said, would guarantee other protections and changes, too—such as more transparent hiring practices and the ability to say no to frequent transfers.
That’s when Glithero and Love decided to spearhead a movement to organize the 100-odd principals and assistant principals at Sweetwater into a union. This May, after close to a year of campaigning, the Administrators Association Sweetwater Union was by the school board. It was also ratified by the Public Employees Labor Relation Board under California’s laws on union recognition.
At the time of its ratification, AASU had the support of 90 administrators in the district out of approximately 106. The union members will now decide on bylaws and elect officers.
Principals’ unions aren’t as prolific or large as teachers’ unions. Nor do they have the political heft of the National Education Association or the American Federation of Teachers, the two national teachers’ unions. Since the pandemic, though, there’s been a steady increase in the number of administrators who’ve sought the protections that can come with a bargained contract.
In 2023, the administrator union in Chicago the right to collective bargaining; New York City’s administrators a new contract that gives covered employees the option to work from home one day a month (a first in the country); and in Virginia’s Fairfax County, a group of administrators—principals, assistant principals, and central office staff, including transportation managers—are holding an election later this summer on whether to unionize after the ban on public sector collective bargaining was lifted in the state.
All these local unions, including the one in Sweetwater, are affiliated with the American Federation of School Administrators, a national labor union that now has close to 25,000 members, a 15 percent increase since 2019, said spokesperson Scott Treibitz.
If Fairfax administrators vote to unionize, they’ll be the largest administrator group to unionize in the last decade, adding up to 1,400 members, Treibitz said.
The number of local unions affiliated with AFSA has moderately increased, too—from 136 in 2009 to more than 150 in 2024.
And experts say that the growth in principals’ unions might inspire administrators elsewhere to organize.
“Being part of a union could ramp up the leadership qualities in a principal,” said Robert Bruno, a labor relations professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. “They could be trained [through their union work] to become better public speakers or govern better. This will be attractive to other leaders, who may join the same union, or create something independent, and affiliate later. This could be a ripple effect.”
Why principals want to unionize
Since the pandemic, the demands on administrators have multiplied. The role has become more challenging with learning loss, chronic absenteeism, and persistent teacher shortages.
But there are other systemic reasons why administrators would want to unionize.
“Principals are in an interesting structural location. They are not at the strategic level to determine policy. They’re not at a tactical level, either, where superintendents usually make operational plans for a school district,” Bruno said.
Principals are expected to implement policies determined by the district, often with insufficient resources, and they are evaluated on how well they do so, he said.
Without a union that has the legal power to negotiate terms and conditions of work, principals are out there on an island.
Principals increasingly see a need to inject their voice into how district-level policies are implemented in schools , and the resources they have to work with, Bruno added: “Frankly, without a union that has the legal power to negotiate terms and conditions of work, principals are out there on an island.”
For the administrators at Sweetwater, there’s another key demand they plan to bargain for: job security. It’s common practice in the district, said Glithero, to shuffle administrators from school to school when others leave or get promoted. Love has moved to three different positions in the last four years, and Glithero’s school has also seen a significant turnover in assistant principals.
“We’re all praying that none of us [three] APs are moved. There are so many plans we’re unable to implement as a team [if we get moved],” Glithero said.
The new union also wants more transparency in how administrators are hired. “We don’t know what the rubric is,” Glithero said.
A Sweetwater district spokesperson said the school system was still in the early stages of this process: “We are dedicated to fostering a positive and productive relationship with our union representatives.”
Unions can also provide cover to administrators, as demanding better pay or working conditions could single them out, said David DeMatthews, an assistant professor at the school of Educational Leadership and Policy at the University of Texas at Austin.
DeMatthews, a former assistant principal and union member, said being part of a union can “mitigate the fear of speaking out” for members.
“Unions can also advocate for more progressive policies for public schools, like better funding,” he added.
Administrators’ unions may face complications, challenges
Whether principals and other administrators can form a union varies by state. Even in states that allow collective bargaining generally, principals may not be permitted to form a union or bargain for a contract, said Sonja Trainor, the executive director of the National School Attorneys Association, which works with school attorneys who counsel school boards across the country.
Trainor pointed to states like Tennessee, where principals (and teachers) are not covered by the state’s labor negotiations framework, and Indiana, where principals are excluded from the state’s collective bargaining law, though teachers have the right to bargain.
And in Illinois, Chicago public schools principals can organize and bargain for a contract, but not strike, Trainor added.
Some school districts have been supportive of their principals unionizing. Sweetwater administrators’ resolution to unionize was approved by the school board unanimously. Similarly, in Fairfax County, the school board has not raised any objection to the organizing activity, said Jeff Litz, one of the principal organizers who helped draft a resolution recognizing the administrators’ union, which the school board passed in March 2023. (Administrators themselves still need to vote on whether they want to form the union.)
A district or school board is more supportive of an administrators’ union if their goals align, said Trainor, and if administrators can help improve the district’s relationship with the teachers’ union.
On the flip side, administrators’ unions can find themselves at odds with the district if their goal is to “isolate and pressure the leadership,” said Trainor.
District leaders also have to be prepared to cede some control.
“Adding a voice to the bargaining table will take some additional power away from the superintendent. The conversation will become more inclusive, but also more complex,” said DeMatthews.
Another complicating factor: Unionized school administrators are still tasked with enforcing other labor contracts—like with teachers—on behalf of the district. That means they have to navigate multiple contracts, which might not always align.
And some administrators’ unions represent multiple job roles, like principals, assistant principals, and central office staff. It took Fairfax’s organizing committee, which represents all three categories, several long and intense discussions on what bargaining items should go into the first contract. There were issues common to all groups, like salary, benefits, and due process, but there were varied interests, too.
Adding a voice to the bargaining table will take some additional power away from the superintendent. The conversation will become more inclusive, but also more complex.
For now, the initial resolution, passed by the school board, says the district can bargain over a specific topic with just one of the groups of administrators, if both parties agree. “We’ve left it open,” Litz added.
Administrators’ unions may also be faced with an issue where one union member (a principal) has to discipline another (an assistant principal). If such an issue did crop up, union experts said, both parties would get access to legal representation as spelled out in their contract.
This can present complications, though. As a former assistant principal, DeMatthews was tasked with disciplining an employee who shared the same legal representation.
“I believe that unions are important but supervisors, at times, need the ability to supervise their staff free of any conflicts like being in the same union, having the same representation,” he said. “I think that’s very tricky.”
The road ahead for principals’ unions
McKay, in Fairfax County, has put together a volunteer team of 75 administrators who are helping to draft an initial contract, elect officers, and reach out to potential members—especially central office staff—to garner more support for the upcoming union vote in August.
Across the country, in Sweetwater, there are only a handful of holdouts, whom the principal duo is trying to win over. The big pitch to them, said Love, is centered on equity.
“Right now, they [the district] take our feedback. But we don’t get a vote,” she said. “We want to be treated equitably. We are the ones who spend every day in school with the kids. We should have a say in what works, or doesn’t work, for them.”
