45 Essential School Leadership Voices in North Carolina

Last updated: June 2026

As of June 2026, North Carolina has one of the most active and well-documented school leadership ecosystems in the United States. If you want to understand what excellent principals, superintendents, researchers, and policy advocates look like in practice, this state is one of the best places to look. The people on this list are shaping how schools are led, how future leaders are prepared, and how the evidence base for better leadership gets built and shared.

School leadership in North Carolina matters enormously. The Wallace Foundation's landmark 2021 synthesis found that principal effectiveness is second only to classroom instruction among school-related influences on student learning, and that finding holds particular resonance in a state that has invested more than three decades in making that principle actionable. From the nationally recognised principal preparation work at NC State's Educational Leadership Academy to the state-wide policy infrastructure connecting universities, associations, and districts, North Carolina has built a school leadership ecosystem that the rest of the country regularly comes to study.

This list was compiled to surface the people doing that work. It spans state policy leaders setting the conditions for great principals to thrive, university researchers building the evidence base, practising principals demonstrating what transformational school culture looks like in classrooms and corridors, district leaders turning that culture into system-wide achievement, and the coaches, advocates, and innovators connecting it all. Rather than replicating the same handful of names that appear on every education list, the goal here is to surface the voices who genuinely deserve to be far better known by anyone working in or around North Carolina's schools.

A key insight from the Wallace Foundation research drives the framing here: the highest-performing schools are not accidents. They reflect deliberate, skilled, and sustained leadership. As of 2025, North Carolina has approximately 2,700 principals and 115 superintendents. Getting the best possible people into those roles, keeping them there, and surrounding them with the support they need is the leadership challenge this list is built around.

To explore how Jonno White, author of Step Up or Step Out (10,000+ copies sold) and Certified Working Genius Facilitator, can work with your school leadership team on culture, communication, and team dynamics, email jonno@consultclarity.org.

Why School Leadership Matters in North Carolina

Strong school leadership is the second most powerful school-based influence on student achievement, exceeded only by classroom instruction itself. That conclusion, drawn from the Wallace Foundation's comprehensive 2021 synthesis of two decades of research, is not abstract. It has direct consequences for the roughly 1.5 million students currently enrolled in North Carolina's public schools. A highly effective principal can add months of additional learning for every student in a building, year after year.

North Carolina has built more deliberate infrastructure around this finding than almost any other state. The NC State Educational Leadership Academy has operated for more than fourteen years, preparing principals specifically for high-need, hard-to-staff, and historically low-performing schools. The North Carolina Principal Fellows Program has produced more than 2,000 school leaders since its founding in 1993, and in January 2025 it received a further $14.4 million in grant funding to continue through 2032. The NCPAPA runs specific pipeline programmes for assistant principals. The NCSSA and NCASLD run leadership development and aspiring superintendent programmes. Few states have built this level of intentional architecture around the principalship and the superintendency.

The challenge, as multiple NC-based researchers and practitioners have documented, is that the architecture is under pressure. Principal internships have been shortened. Teacher shortages reduce the pipeline of aspiring leaders. Rural districts face particular recruitment and retention challenges. The people on this list are the ones working on those problems, often in ways that extend well beyond their formal roles.

Book Jonno White to work with your school leadership team on the team dynamics and communication foundations that make great leadership pipelines possible. Email jonno@consultclarity.org.

How This List Was Compiled

Every person on this list is either based in North Carolina or doing primary work shaping school leadership in the state. The selection criteria covered a combination of verified leadership roles, documented contributions through research, policy writing, keynote work, or public advocacy, and confirmed current positions. The list targets voices across the full spectrum of school leadership: classroom-level principals, district-level superintendents, university-based researchers, state policy leaders, and coaches and consultants with a demonstrable NC footprint. People were not ranked. They are organised into seven thematic categories, each representing a distinct dimension of what great school leadership in North Carolina looks like.

Category 1: State and System Leaders

These six people shape the conditions within which all other school leadership in North Carolina operates. Through state policy, public journalism, business advocacy, and programme direction, they set the context that every principal and superintendent works within.

The state system leaders are not always the loudest voices in the room, but they are often the most consequential. Legislative priorities, funding flows, preparation programme structures, and the way the public understands what great schools require all flow through institutions these leaders run. Their influence reaches every one of the state's 2,700 principals and 115 superintendents.

1. Maurice "Mo" Green

Maurice "Mo" Green became North Carolina's 22nd Superintendent of Public Instruction on January 1, 2025, following a November 2024 election. Before taking the state's top education role, Green served as Superintendent of Guilford County Schools from 2008 to 2015 and later as executive director of the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation. He holds a bachelor's degree and a Juris Doctor from Duke University.

Green's leadership philosophy centres on what he calls "achieving educational excellence" and is shaped by his career spanning school law, district administration, and philanthropy. Since taking office he has launched a Superintendent's Parent Advisory Council, rolled out a comprehensive state strategic plan, and personally advocates for every child's constitutional right to a quality education. His public comments consistently reinforce the importance of principals as "difference-makers" in their buildings.

To explore how Jonno White's keynote and facilitation work complements state-level leadership development initiatives in North Carolina, email jonno@consultclarity.org.

2. Mebane Rash

Mebane Rash is the founding CEO and editor-in-chief of EducationNC, an independent nonprofit news organisation she built from an audience of zero to 1.2 million unique users over ten years. EdNC covers North Carolina education with a depth and rigour that has made it a primary source for practitioners, policymakers, and researchers across the state. Rash holds degrees from the University of Virginia and the UNC School of Law.

Rash was one of sixty women from twenty-five countries invited to the Harvard Kennedy School's programme on Women and Power: Leadership in the New World, and she is the current president of the national Governmental Research Association. Her decision to build EdNC as a free, open-source resource means that every EdNC story including its extensive school leadership coverage is available to every educator in the state at no cost. The perspective columns she publishes from practitioners, researchers, and policymakers constitute a running public record of what school leadership in North Carolina actually looks like from the inside.

3. Brenda Berg

Brenda Berg is President and CEO of BEST NC, the nonpartisan nonprofit coalition of North Carolina business leaders that focuses on education policy and workforce development. She was recently appointed to the state's Blue Ribbon Commission on Public Education. Berg is also adjunct faculty at UNC-Chapel Hill and a regular guest lecturer at Duke University and NC State University.

When asked to name the single most important investment NC could make in its schools, Berg's answer is consistent: principals. She has stated publicly that if she had to choose one thing to focus on, she would always focus on principals, because people want to work for good people. Her organisation has produced multiple policy reports on the North Carolina Principal Fellows Program and actively advocates for the principal pipeline as a driver of both educational quality and economic competitiveness.

4. Javaid Siddiqi

Javaid Siddiqi is President and CEO of The Hunt Institute, a Raleigh-based affiliate of the Duke University Sanford School of Public Policy that works to improve outcomes for learners at every stage. The Hunt Institute runs the Hunt-Kean Leadership Fellows programme, which has produced governor-level education leaders across all fifty states, and the ElevateNC programme, which builds postsecondary leadership capacity in North Carolina communities.

Siddiqi was formerly Secretary of Education for the state of Virginia. Under his leadership, The Hunt Institute has become one of the most influential bipartisan education policy organisations in the country, and its work is heavily anchored in North Carolina, where it convenes legislators, school leaders, and researchers at its annual Holshouser Legislators Retreat. His 2026 retreat brought together more than fifty legislators to focus on the link between education and the state's economic future.

5. Jack Hoke

Jack Hoke is the Executive Director of the North Carolina School Superintendents' Association, the primary professional body representing the state's 115 public school superintendents. He served for twelve years as Superintendent of Alexander County Schools before moving to the NCSSA role, where he has now spent nine years. During that tenure he has been a central figure in the NCSSA Aspiring Superintendents Program, the Dr. Samuel Houston Jr. Leadership Award, and the annual NC Superintendent of the Year recognition.

Hoke is one of the most consistent public voices on what the superintendency demands, and he has maintained the position throughout his tenure that the quality of district leadership is directly tied to the quality of every school in that district. The NCSSA he leads provides professional development, legal consulting, coaching for new superintendents, and legislative advocacy, making it a critical infrastructure node for every superintendent in the state.

6. Lauren Lampron

Lauren Lampron is the Director of the North Carolina Principal Fellows Program, the state-supported, forgivable loan programme that has prepared more than 2,000 school leaders since 1993. She was appointed to the role in late 2023 by the NC Principal Fellows Program Commission. Lampron holds a Master of School Administration and a Doctor of Education from NC State University and also lectures at NC State.

Her work is focused on reinventing how school leaders are chosen and prepared in North Carolina, and she has presented on that agenda at the BEST NC Education Innovation Lab and in multiple state forums. The Principal Fellows Program is one of the most studied and replicated school leader preparation models in the United States, and Lampron's stewardship of it during a period of significant policy change makes her one of the most operationally influential people on this list.

Category 2: University Researchers and Preparers

These eight people based at NC universities are building the evidence base, designing and running preparation programmes, and training the next generation of principals and education leaders.

North Carolina's strength in this category is exceptional. NC State University's College of Education alone has produced one of the most comprehensive and funded principal preparation ecosystems in the country. The researchers here are not working in abstraction. Their work is directly tied to the schools and districts of North Carolina, and their influence extends from preparing individual principals to shaping state policy.

7. Bonnie Fusarelli

Bonnie Fusarelli is a Distinguished Professor of Educational Leadership at NC State University and Executive Director of NC State's Leadership Preparation Programs, including the nationally recognised NC State Educational Leadership Academy (NELA). She has secured more than $41 million in grant and private funding for programmes supporting NC school leaders and in January 2025 led the announcement of a further $14.4 million grant from the NC Principal Fellows Commission to sustain NELA through 2032.

In 2022 she received the Governor James E. Holshouser Jr. Award for Excellence in Public Service, the highest service honour in the UNC System, for her transformative work supporting school leaders across North Carolina. Her research focuses on educational leadership and policy, the politics of school improvement, and equity. She co-authored a 2019 article in Educational Administration Quarterly with Lance Fusarelli and Timothy Drake examining the context, challenges, and promising practices of NC State's principal leadership academies.

Hire Jonno White to facilitate a Working Genius session with your school leadership team. Email jonno@consultclarity.org.

8. Lance Fusarelli

Lance Fusarelli is a Distinguished Professor of Educational Leadership and Policy at NC State University and Director of Graduate Programs in the Department of Educational Leadership, Policy, and Human Development. He has authored or edited seven books and more than ninety journal articles and book chapters, with research focused on the politics of education, federal education policy including the Every Student Succeeds Act, and the superintendency.

He has served as a media expert for WRAL and WFAE on North Carolina education issues and is regularly cited in state and national journalism. In 2012 he was ranked 79th nationally among scholars whose research contributes most substantially to public debates about schools and schooling. His co-authored 2019 article with Bonnie Fusarelli and Timothy Drake on NC State's leadership academies is the most comprehensive published examination of the NELA programme's design and evolution.

9. Timothy Drake

Timothy Drake is an Associate Professor at NC State University's College of Education, where he has studied, taught, and supported school leadership in North Carolina for fifteen years. His research focuses on the principalship and principal preparation, particularly the connection between early-grades leadership and student outcomes in pre-K through third grade. He is a co-investigator on the NELA programme and regularly contributes perspectives to EducationNC.

In May 2025 he published an EdNC op-ed arguing that cutting principal internships is a mistake North Carolina's schools cannot afford, drawing on fifteen years of research to make the case that the internship is the single most important component of school leader preparation. He is also part of the advisory group designing North Carolina's Principal Working Conditions Survey, ensuring that principal voice is represented in data-driven policymaking at the state level.

10. Jenn Ayscue

Jenn Ayscue is an Associate Professor of Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis and Educational Leadership at NC State University. Her research focuses on school integration in K-12 schools and federal education policy, with a particular emphasis on equity. Before joining the NC State faculty, she was an American Educational Research Association Congressional Fellow in the United States Senate and Research Director of The Initiative for School Integration at the Civil Rights Project at UCLA.

Her 2024 report, published by the Civil Rights Project, found that North Carolina schools are more segregated now than they were in the 1980s, a finding with direct implications for how school leaders think about enrolment, culture, and equity. Her work on dual-language immersion programmes as a desegregation tool is informing both school-level and district-level leadership decisions across the state.

11. Lacey Seaton

Lacey Seaton is an Associate Teaching Professor of Educational Leadership at NC State University, where she joined the faculty in August 2024 after serving as an assistant professor at Virginia Commonwealth University. She is a two-time NC State alumna, holding a Master of School Administration and a Doctor of Education in Educational Administration, as well as a bachelor's degree in adapted special education from UNC Wilmington.

Her recent publications in Education Sciences and the Journal of Research on Leadership Education focus on school leader preparation and culturally responsive leadership. At NC State she teaches courses including School Law, Policy and Ethics, and Administrative Internship, and is part of the NELA programme team alongside Bonnie Fusarelli, Lance Fusarelli, and Timothy Drake.

12. Michael Little

Michael Little is a tenured Associate Professor in Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis at NC State University's College of Education. His research focuses specifically on early childhood leadership, examining how elementary principals can better understand and lead across the pre-K to third grade span. In April 2026 he published an EdNC perspective piece arguing that elementary principals cannot meet their leadership mandate without competencies in aligning instruction, culture, and family engagement across the early grades.

His work is timely given North Carolina's statewide push on literacy in the early grades and the pressure on elementary principals to implement science-of-reading approaches. In 2022 he co-led a grant-funded project with Timothy Drake to develop the North Carolina Early Grades Leadership Collaborative, giving principals tools to better serve their youngest students.

13. Debra Morris

Debra Morris is the Graduate Program Director for the Master of School Administration programme at UNC Charlotte. She served as the 2008 NC Principal of the Year from Kannapolis City Schools, making her one of a small group of people who have led at the highest levels of both practitioner and university-based school leadership in North Carolina.

Her dual credibility as a former state principal of the year and as the director of UNC Charlotte's MSA programme gives her a unique vantage point on what the gap between preparation and practice actually looks like. UNC Charlotte is one of eight partner universities in the North Carolina Principal Fellows Program, making her programme a key feeder into the state's most recognised principal preparation infrastructure.

14. Jan King

Jan King served as the 2010 NC Principal of the Year from Henderson County Public Schools and now works as a leadership coach with the Western Carolina University Principal Fellows programme. She is also a named contributor to the NC Principal Working Conditions Advisory Group, working alongside Tim Drake, Jeni Corn, and DPI's Kelly Batts to develop the survey tool that will give principal voice a data-driven presence in state policy conversations.

Her transition from award-winning practitioner to leadership coach and programme contributor represents one of the most common and valuable pathways in North Carolina's school leadership ecosystem: former state principals who give back to the next generation of leaders by mentoring, coaching, and building the infrastructure for those who follow.

Organisations looking to build this kind of leadership culture across their team can email Jonno White, Certified Working Genius Facilitator, at jonno@consultclarity.org.

Category 3: Principals of the Year and Outstanding Principals

These seven practising and recently recognised principals represent the standard of excellence the state has formally acknowledged through its longest-running recognition programme.

The NC Principal of the Year programme has run since 1984 and is one of the most structured and well-resourced school leader recognition programmes in the United States. Recipients spend a year travelling the state as ambassadors for the profession, sit on the State Board of Education as advisers, and join the Public School Forum board. This gives them a platform that goes well beyond the year of their recognition. The people in this category are not just excellent principals. They are representatives of a philosophy of leadership.

15. Jason Johnson

Jason Johnson is the principal of Orange High School in Orange County and is both the 2025 Wells Fargo NC Principal of the Year and the 2026 NASSP National High School Principal of the Year, the most prestigious principal recognition in the United States. He has been in education for more than twenty-five years and has held roles as a classroom teacher, central office administrator, and principal across multiple North Carolina counties.

His "lead with love" philosophy drives his focus on equity and academic growth, and at Orange High he built a Guiding Coalition and ongoing professional development structure that centres teacher leadership. He received the Dr. Sam Houston Jr. Leadership Award in 2019 upon graduating from the NCSSA Aspiring Superintendent Program. He holds a bachelor's degree from NC A&T State University and a master's and specialist degree from UNC Greensboro.

16. Mariah Walker

Mariah Walker is the principal of Wake Young Women's Leadership Academy in Raleigh and the 2026 Wells Fargo NC Principal of the Year. Under her leadership, WYWLA has achieved a 100% graduation rate for four consecutive years, exceeded growth expectations for two consecutive years, and was named a 2026 Top Magnet School of Excellence by Magnet Schools of America. She has served as principal since 2022.

Her leadership philosophy is built around the principle that "how you make room at your table determines whether your guest wants to eat," and she applies that to confronting inequity with courage, care, and collective responsibility. Outside her own school she serves as president of the Wake County Division of Principals and Assistant Principals and as a mentor to aspiring and beginning administrators. In 2026-27 she will travel the state as an ambassador for the profession.

17. Beckie Spears

Beckie Spears is the principal of Wilkesboro Elementary School in Wilkes County and the 2024 Wells Fargo NC Principal of the Year. Over five years at the school she produced measurable improvements in both student performance and school culture, with the school exceeding expected growth in 2022-23. During her year as state Principal of the Year she introduced the 2025 cohort of Regional Principals of the Year.

Her leadership approach is centred on collective efficacy and what she describes as an obligation to deliver excellence to every student. The first North Carolina Principal of the Year, in 1984, was Dr. Alexander Erwin from Wilkes County Schools, the same county where Spears now serves, a fact that has become part of how she frames her own commitment to the profession.

18. Donna Bledsoe

Donna Bledsoe is the principal of Cedar Ridge Elementary School in Surry County, a pre-K through fifth grade rural school that she has led since 2016, and the 2023 Wells Fargo NC Principal of the Year. During her tenure, the school's performance placed it in the top 5% of all K-12 schools in North Carolina in 2023, and the school was named the 2022 NCASCD Lighthouse School for innovative practices in literacy and leadership.

Her philosophy is built around a single word: joy. The culture she has built at Cedar Ridge includes a fifty-minute weekly enrichment period where students choose their own activities and a library media programme that increased circulation by 3,000 books in her first year. Governor Roy Cooper visited Cedar Ridge in 2023. She is part of the Principal Working Conditions Survey advisory group, contributing practitioner voice to the survey's design.

For more on building high-performing school leadership teams, read Jonno White's blog post "50 Essential US Public Education Leaders to Follow" at consultclarity.org.

19. Patrick Greene

Patrick Greene is the principal of Greene Central High School in Greene County and the 2022 Wells Fargo NC Principal of the Year. Greene County is a rural county in eastern North Carolina, and Greene Central represents the kind of school that is often underserved by principal quality research and professional development designed for larger urban and suburban settings.

His entry into the Principal of the Year programme and his subsequent year as a state ambassador brought significant visibility to the rural eastern NC school leadership context. His continued leadership at Greene Central means he has gone on building the school culture he was recognised for across subsequent years, demonstrating the kind of sustained commitment that the research literature identifies as one of the strongest predictors of school improvement.

20. Latreicia Allen

Latreicia Allen is the principal of John Griffin Middle School in Cumberland County Schools and the 2026 Sandhills Regional Principal of the Year finalist. Under her leadership, the school's performance grade moved from a C to a B, and the school met or exceeded expected growth for two consecutive years. Her leadership approach combines data-informed decision-making with an empathy-based discipline model.

Her philosophy can be summarised in the phrase she uses as her mantra: every child, every chance, every day. She provides teachers with monthly professional development including visits to other high-performing schools, and she has built authentic community partnerships that ensure families feel valued and teachers grow. Her framing of school leadership as the alignment of relationships, rigour, and relevance is one of the sharpest distillations of what research-backed principal practice looks like in a real middle school setting.

21. Christy Propst

Christy Propst is the principal of Morehead City Elementary School at Camp Glenn in Carteret County Schools and the 2025 Southeast Regional Principal of the Year. Her DPI profile describes a leader whose consistency in results and approach to instructional leadership has made her one of the most recognised principals in the southeastern region of the state.

Carteret County sits in the coastal plain, a geography that creates distinctive leadership challenges around community resilience, economic diversity, and access to professional development networks that are more readily available in urban districts. Propst's recognition highlights the depth of principal talent in coastal and rural North Carolina that often goes unrecognised in national conversations about school leadership.

Engage Jonno White to run a Working Genius or team culture session at your next school leadership off-site. Email jonno@consultclarity.org.

Category 4: Superintendents of the Year and Outstanding Superintendents

These eight superintendents represent the highest-recognised district leadership in North Carolina, drawn from the annual state and regional Superintendent of the Year programme. They lead districts ranging from rural eastern North Carolina to mountain counties still recovering from Hurricane Helene.

North Carolina's superintendent recognition infrastructure is among the most developed in the country. Regional superintendents of the year from each of the state's eight regions compete for the state title, and all eight receive significant professional development opportunities including coaching, board advisory roles, and national conference representation. The people in this category are the ones their peers have identified as leading best.

22. Rodney Peterson

Rodney Peterson is the Superintendent of Person County Schools and the 2026 Burroughs Wellcome Fund A. Craig Phillips NC Superintendent of the Year. He accepted the award on behalf of the 114 superintendents he described as equally deserving, a framing that reflects his broader philosophy of servant leadership. He has served in public education for more than two decades.

At his acceptance ceremony he challenged fellow superintendents to be team leaders and to keep their focus on students amid what he described as "a lot of noise" in the current environment. Person County Schools serves a rural county near Durham, and Peterson's recognition reflects a pattern in NC Superintendent of the Year awards of spotlighting rural district leadership that often gets overshadowed in policy conversations focused on large urban districts.

23. Freddie Williamson

Freddie Williamson is the Superintendent of Public Schools of Robeson County and the 2025 NC Superintendent of the Year. He has worked in public education for more than forty years. Robeson County is one of the most demographically and economically complex school districts in North Carolina, serving a majority Native American, African American, and Lumbee population with significant poverty rates.

Williamson's recognition as Superintendent of the Year for such a district carries particular weight in a state where conversations about educational equity tend to focus on policy instruments rather than on the sustained leadership required to move outcomes in challenging contexts. He currently serves on the board of directors of the North Carolina Public School Forum.

Bring Jonno White in to work with your district leadership team on building the culture that sustains long-term improvement. Email jonno@consultclarity.org.

24. Valerie Bridges

Valerie Bridges served as Superintendent of Edgecombe County Public Schools until her retirement in September 2023 and was the 2022 NC Superintendent of the Year. She is a myFutureNC Commissioner and has more than thirty years of experience as a North Carolina educator and school leader. During her tenure at Edgecombe, a district serving a predominantly Black community in eastern NC, she built a reputation for equity-centred leadership and sustained improvement in student outcomes.

Her retirement from the superintendency does not diminish her influence: she continues as a myFutureNC Commissioner, contributing to the state's effort to reach two million North Carolinians with a high-quality postsecondary credential by 2030. Her career arc, from classroom to the state's highest superintendent recognition, represents a model of deep local commitment that is central to how North Carolina thinks about growing its own school leaders.

25. Otis Smallwood

Otis Smallwood is the Superintendent of Bertie County Schools, the 2025 Northeast Regional Superintendent of the Year, and a Bertie County native who returned to his home district in 2019 after a stint leading a neighbouring county. Since returning, he has grown Bertie's international educator programme to thirty-three educators, established a dual language programme launching in 2026-27, and opened Dream Pointe, a twenty-four-unit teacher housing complex built through community partnerships.

His story is regularly covered by EducationNC as an example of what is possible in rural eastern North Carolina when the superintendent is from the community, knows the context, and commits for the long term. His regional Superintendent of the Year recognition confirmed what his peers in the northeast region had observed directly: that Bertie's results are real and his methods are replicable.

26. Matthew Cheeseman

Matthew Cheeseman became Superintendent of Craven County Schools on February 1, 2026, after serving as Superintendent of Beaufort County Schools since January 2019. He holds a Doctorate from East Carolina University and brings more than thirty-one years of experience in public education. He was the 2025-26 Southeast Region 2 Superintendent of the Year and a finalist for the state Superintendent of the Year award.

His career has spanned roles as superintendent, chief academic officer, curriculum leader, administrator, athletic director, and classroom teacher across North Carolina and nationally, making him one of the more broadly experienced district leaders on this list. His move from Beaufort to Craven, two counties in eastern North Carolina with overlapping challenges and strengths, reflects the regional knowledge that characterises the most effective superintendents in that part of the state.

27. Eisa Cox

Eisa Cox is the Superintendent of Ashe County Schools in Jefferson, North Carolina, the 2025-26 Northwest Regional Superintendent of the Year, and the recipient of the NCSSA's Dr. Brad Sneeden Leadership Award. In February 2026 she presented at the American Association of School Administrators National Conference on Education in Nashville alongside Kathy Amos and Rob Jackson, sharing how Hurricane Helene pushed western NC school districts to lead their communities through a crisis that went far beyond the traditional school leadership mandate.

As a rural mountain county superintendent who built a national platform from her response to a natural disaster, Cox represents a kind of thought leadership that does not look like a keynote or a book but is equally consequential: the practitioner who leads by doing and whose example others come to study.

Organisations wanting to build leadership resilience in their teams can email Jonno White at jonno@consultclarity.org.

28. Kathy Amos

Kathy Amos is the Superintendent of Yancey County Schools and the 2025-26 Western Regional Superintendent of the Year. She co-presented with Eisa Cox and Rob Jackson at the 2026 AASA National Conference on Education, with a session titled "Educators as Crisis Leaders: How Public Education Anchors Communities in Uncertain Times," drawing directly on the experience of leading Yancey County Schools through the aftermath of Hurricane Helene in October 2024.

Yancey County is a small, predominantly rural mountain county, and Amos's national platform has been built not through traditional thought leadership channels but through the documented reality of what her district did when Helene hit. The session she presented in Nashville is the kind of practical, evidence-based knowledge sharing that shapes how superintendents across the country prepare for the intersecting crises of natural disaster, community need, and educational continuity.

29. Travis Reeves

Travis Reeves has served as Superintendent of Surry County Schools since January 2013, previously leading Ashe County Schools. He is a myFutureNC Commissioner, has served as past president of the NC Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, and was twice named Superintendent of the Year in the Piedmont Triad Educational Consortium. He holds a doctorate and is recognised across western and Piedmont NC for his community-embedded approach to district leadership.

Under his leadership Surry County Schools created Surry Virtual Academy, Surry Online Magnet School, and multiple community partnership initiatives. His longevity in the role, over twelve years in Surry County alone, reflects a commitment to deep local knowledge that contrasts with the national trend of short superintendent tenures. He also supported the school career of Donna Bledsoe, the 2023 NC Principal of the Year.

Book Jonno White to work with your district leadership team on culture and team dynamics. Email jonno@consultclarity.org.

Category 5: District Innovation and Equity Leaders

These eight superintendents are leading districts that exemplify a particular strand of school leadership: using data, innovation, equity, or community partnership in ways that are measurably changing outcomes for students.

North Carolina's geographic and demographic diversity means that excellent district leadership takes very different forms depending on context. What works in an urban district of 160,000 students is not identical to what works in a rural district of 2,600. The leaders in this category have each built a recognisable model that others in their region or nationally are watching closely.

30. Steve Lassiter Jr.

Steve Lassiter Jr. is the Superintendent of Pitt County Schools in Greenville, North Carolina, a position he was named to in November 2024. He holds a Doctor of Education from NC State University's College of Education and grew up in eastern North Carolina, where his K-12 teachers made a lasting impression on his path toward educational leadership. In January 2026, the National School Public Relations Association named him among the 2025-26 National Superintendents to Watch, one of just thirty superintendents in the country selected for the honour.

His commitment to "leaving no stone unturned for our students" reflects a leadership philosophy of relentless advocacy for eastern NC students in a region that has historically faced chronic underinvestment. Pitt County Schools serves more than 23,000 students, making it a large and complex district by North Carolina's standards, and Lassiter's early recognition as a national superintendent to watch suggests his impact is already being noticed beyond state borders.

31. Rob Jackson

Rob Jackson is the Superintendent of Buncombe County Schools, the largest school district in western North Carolina, serving nearly 22,000 students across 47 schools. He became superintendent in November 2022 and is a Buncombe County native who grew up in Swannanoa. He is a myFutureNC Commissioner and presented alongside Eisa Cox and Kathy Amos at the 2026 AASA national conference on how schools led their communities through Hurricane Helene.

His career began as a student data manager before earning his degree through Asheville-Buncombe Technical Community College and Western Carolina University, and he served as a principal in three schools in Union County before returning to western NC. That arc, from custodian and student data manager to superintendent of the region's largest district, is both personally remarkable and practically significant: it is the kind of lived understanding of a community's context that sustains commitment through a crisis.

32. Keith Parker

Keith Parker is the Superintendent of Elizabeth City-Pasquotank Public Schools in northeastern North Carolina and an alumnus of NC State's NELA Cohort IV programme. Under his leadership, student achievement in the district doubled over two years, resulting in the first "A"-performing school in the district's history and the elimination of any "F"-performing schools, a result that NC State NELA highlighted in 2024 as a direct example of the programme's impact.

He is active on LinkedIn, sharing content on dual language immersion, AI in school leadership, and teacher retention. ECPPS is now part of the Participate Learning network for global learning partnerships. The Apple Leadership Symposium invited him to attend and contribute in 2024. His combination of academic preparation, data-driven leadership, and public voice on innovative practice places him among the most distinctive district leaders in eastern North Carolina.

33. Nakia Hardy

Nakia Hardy is the Superintendent of Lexington City Schools, appointed effective July 1, 2024. She previously served in leadership roles at multiple districts and was recognised by the NCSSA for her professional development contributions, presenting a session titled "Backroads and Blue Highways: The Drive to Strategic Planning and Staffing as a New Superintendent" at the NCSSA Summer Leadership Conference.

Her session title captures something essential about what new superintendents in smaller NC districts face: the need to build strategic planning capacity and effective staffing from scratch, often without the central office infrastructure available in larger districts. Her willingness to present on that challenge publicly, and the NCSSA's decision to feature her work, suggests she is being watched as an emerging voice in the state's superintendency community.

Organisations interested in building leadership capacity across their teams can book Jonno White, author of Step Up or Step Out (10,000+ copies sold), at jonno@consultclarity.org.

34. Tim Locklair

Tim Locklair is the Superintendent of Moore County Schools and the 2025-26 Sandhills Regional Superintendent of the Year. A Moore County native who graduated from Pinecrest High School, he has thirty years of experience in public education and became superintendent in 2022. Under his leadership, Moore County Schools implemented the "MCS Way," a collaborative, teamwork-driven culture initiative, and the district now ranks in the top 10 of North Carolina's 115 districts for both grade-level proficiency and Career and Technical Education credential attainment.

His recognition as regional Superintendent of the Year was described by the Sandhills Regional Education Consortium Executive Director as reflecting his status as a "leader among leaders" with the highest respect among his peers. The MCS Choices campaign he developed, offering in-person, virtual, and Blend+Ed options, represents one of the more systematic efforts in the state to make school choice a genuine equity instrument.

35. Andrew Houlihan

Andrew Houlihan is the Superintendent of Union County Public Schools and the 2025-26 Southwest Regional Superintendent of the Year. Union County is one of the fastest-growing districts in North Carolina, with its proximity to Charlotte driving rapid enrolment increases that put sustained pressure on school quality, staffing, and capital investment.

Managing rapid expansion while maintaining culture and instructional quality is one of the most underappreciated challenges in district leadership, and Houlihan's record in one of NC's highest-pressure growth contexts makes him one of the most closely watched superintendents in the southwest region. His regional Superintendent of the Year recognition reflects what peers in the region have identified as exemplary leadership under sustained growth pressure.

36. Brad Rice

Brad Rice is the Superintendent of Stokes County Schools and the 2025-26 Piedmont Triad Regional Superintendent of the Year. Stokes County is a rural county in the northern Piedmont, and Rice's recognition reflects what peers in the Piedmont Triad region have identified as exemplary district leadership in a small, underresourced setting.

Rural superintendents face a distinctive combination of challenges: lower tax bases, fewer central office staff, greater distances between schools, and thinner professional development networks. Rice's recognition as the Piedmont Triad's strongest superintendent of the year is a signal that the region views him as having navigated those constraints more effectively than any of his peers, and that his approach to district leadership is worth studying by other rural superintendents.

37. LaTresha Wilson

LaTresha Wilson is the principal of Tuckaseegee Elementary School in Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools and the 2026 Southwest Regional Principal of the Year finalist. Her DPI profile describes a leader who has built a school community where growth is expected, supported, and celebrated, with a particular focus on supporting teachers' development and creating space for the full human complexity that educators bring to their work.

Her framing of school leadership as creating cultures where humans bring joy and brilliance, but also their stresses, grief and complexities, reflects a relational philosophy that is increasingly well-supported by research. Charlotte-Mecklenburg is NC's largest school district, and building an elementary school culture of this quality inside the bureaucratic complexity of a 160,000-student system is a leadership achievement that often goes unacknowledged in conversations about district innovation.

Category 6: Policy, Advocacy and Research Builders

These five people are the connective tissue of North Carolina's school leadership ecosystem, translating between research, policy, practice, and the public understanding of what schools need.

No school leadership improvement effort sustains itself without organisations and people who do the slow, unglamorous work of building evidence, translating it into policy language, and keeping it visible over time. The people in this category are not always the ones who get keynoted at the state conference. They are often the ones who made the keynote possible.

38. Krista Glazewski

Krista Glazewski is the Executive Director of the William and Ida Friday Institute for Educational Innovation at NC State University and Associate Dean for Translational Research in the College of Education, roles she has held since July 2023. She is an expert in problem-based learning, scaffolding, and teacher professional development. In February 2026 she convened the Friday Institute's inaugural Education in Motion summit, bringing educators from across the country together to reduce silos in education innovation work.

Her framing for why the summit was needed captures something important: it is easy to work in silos and fragments, but many people are doing the same kinds of work. The Friday Institute under her leadership is the bridge between NC State's research capacity and the practical reality of what NC schools need. The Friday Institute is also leading the Blue Ribbon Commission on Public Education's research and discovery process in 2026.

39. Jeni Corn

Jeni Corn is a Research Director at the NC Collaboratory at UNC-Chapel Hill, which she describes as the "research and grantmaking arm of the General Assembly," and she was previously a researcher and leader at both the Friday Institute for Educational Innovation and the NC Department of Public Instruction. She co-leads the NC Principal Working Conditions Advisory Group alongside Timothy Drake, Kelly Batts from DPI, and Jan King.

Her career arc, moving from academic research to DPI to the Collaboratory, reflects an unusual ability to operate effectively across the research-policy-practice boundary. The Principal Working Conditions Survey she is co-designing with the advisory group will, when launched statewide, provide the first systematic NC-specific data on what conditions principals need to lead effectively, a tool that could reshape how state and local policy invests in school leadership.

Organisations wanting to connect their leadership work to the evidence base can email Jonno White at jonno@consultclarity.org.

40. Keith Poston

Keith Poston is the President of the Wake Ed Partnership, the nonprofit education advocacy organisation for Wake County, and a regular commentator on NC education policy via NC Newsline and the NC Newsmakers podcast. He is also a former executive director of the Public School Forum of North Carolina. In April 2026 he appeared on NC Newsline to argue that chronic underfunding of NC public schools is reaching a crisis point as regressive tax cut schedules take effect.

His platform at Wake Ed Partnership and his history leading the Public School Forum give him a credibility and reach that spans the education advocacy, business, and political communities. Wake County is NC's largest school district by enrolment, and Poston's consistent public voice connecting school funding to economic competitiveness makes him one of the most visible advocates for school leadership conditions in the state.

41. Samuel Houston Jr.

Samuel Houston Jr. is President and CEO of the NC Science, Mathematics and Technology Education Center, housed within the Burroughs Wellcome Fund. He served as Superintendent of the Mooresville Graded School District for a decade, during which he opened the first year-round school in North Carolina, and he was the first executive director of the University of North Carolina Center for School Leadership Development. In 2024 he received the Order of the Long Leaf Pine, North Carolina's highest civilian honour.

The leadership award that bears his name, the Dr. Samuel Houston Jr. Leadership Award, is given annually by the NCSSA and NCASLD to graduates of the Aspiring Superintendent Program who exemplify his values: continuous improvement, ethical conduct, strategic planning, improving student performance, and meeting the needs of the 21st-century workforce. That a leadership award bearing your name exists and has been given to dozens of rising NC school leaders across multiple years is perhaps the most durable form of thought leadership in this context.

42. Audrey Jaeger

Audrey Jaeger is the W. Dallas Herring Professor of Community College Education and Executive Director of the Belk Center for Community College Leadership and Research at NC State University. She founded the Belk Center in 2018 and has secured over $43 million in grants aimed at delivering actionable research and tailored leadership programming to advance community college and student success. She was named to Leadership North Carolina's 2025-26 class.

Her relevance to this list is through the K-12 to postsecondary leadership pipeline: community colleges are a critical part of the teacher and school leader preparation system in North Carolina, and her work building leadership capacity in those institutions directly affects the quality of the people entering school leadership preparation programmes. The Belk Center's focus on social and economic mobility for learners connects community college leadership to the same equity concerns that drive the best school leadership work in the state.

Category 7: Coaches, Consultants and Practitioner Voices

These three people represent the coaching, consulting, and emerging practitioner leadership strand: the people whose work is directly with school leaders in the field, building the skills and confidence of the next generation.

Thought leadership in school leadership does not only flow from research papers, state awards, or policy documents. Some of the most influential work happens in coaching conversations, in presentations to middle school administrators, and in the model set by a principal whose approach is worth studying in depth. The people in this category represent those channels.

43. Frederick Buskey

Frederick Buskey is a Western North Carolina-based leadership coach, podcast host, and consultant who focuses specifically on assistant principals. His podcast, The Assistant Principal Podcast, which he co-hosts with Mara Buskey, addresses the specific challenges of the assistant principal role and is a regular professional development resource for aspiring principals across NC and beyond. He is a regular contributor and keynote speaker for the NC Association for Middle Level Education.

His career spans thirty-two years of K-12 and higher education leadership, and his focus on the assistant principalship fills a gap: the AP role is the primary pipeline for the principalship, but it receives a fraction of the attention that the principalship itself receives. His frameworks for helping APs spend less time on discipline and more time on teacher growth reflect precisely the kind of role redesign that Timothy Drake and the NC Principal Working Conditions survey advisory group are seeking to support at scale.

Bring Jonno White in to work with your assistant principals and leadership team on culture and team dynamics. Email jonno@consultclarity.org.

44. Darrell Harris Jr.

Darrell Harris Jr. is the principal of Eastern Guilford High School in Guilford County Schools and the 2026 Piedmont Triad Regional Principal of the Year finalist. His leadership is described by DPI as being built around buy-in: creating a culture where every member of the school community understands their role and is genuinely committed to it.

Guilford County is one of NC's largest and most diverse school districts, and leading a high school in that district requires navigating a complexity of community needs, academic pathways, and staff culture that can overwhelm less experienced school leaders. Harris's recognition by his regional peers as the Piedmont Triad's strongest principal candidate for the year indicates that his approach is producing the kind of results that are visible to people who know what to look for.

For more on building leadership ecosystems in complex school cultures, read Jonno White's blog post "25 Crucial Fixes for School Leadership Pipeline Collapse" at consultclarity.org.

45. John Lassiter

John Lassiter is the principal of Hertford Grammar School in Perquimans County Schools and the 2025 Northeast Regional Principal of the Year, a recognition he has held for two consecutive years. He is a fifteen-year veteran educator whose consistency in leadership and improvement of school culture has translated into strong school performance results and improved Teacher Working Conditions data.

Perquimans County is a small, rural county in the northeastern corner of North Carolina, near the Albemarle Sound. School leadership in that context is as far from the conference circuit and the university-connected professional development networks as it is possible to get while still being in the same state. Lassiter's consecutive regional recognitions from that geography are a reminder that some of the most sustained and effective school leadership in North Carolina is happening in places that rarely make the education news.

Notable Voices We Almost Included

This list deliberately moved past the household names that appear on every school leadership list nationally and focused on the people shaping the field inside North Carolina. That means figures like Carol Tomlinson at UVA, who has been enormously influential in NC on differentiated instruction, or national keynote figures who present at NC conferences but are based elsewhere, do not appear.

The people we came closest to including but ultimately set aside include several regional principal finalists who have limited public documentation beyond their DPI recognition. The list is built on verified public documentation, and where documentation was not available to confirm a person's current role and contribution, we chose to omit rather than guess. If you know someone in North Carolina school leadership whose work deserves to be recognised, the best next step is ensuring their story is documented and shared through platforms like EducationNC.

Common Mistakes to Avoid in NC School Leadership Development

The school leadership ecosystem in North Carolina is among the best in the country by structural measures, but several persistent patterns limit its impact. Understanding what the most effective leaders on this list are doing differently starts with recognising what the field keeps doing wrong.

The first and most common mistake is treating principal preparation as a standalone credential rather than a career-long developmental process. The NC Principal Fellows Program and NELA have both been built on the opposite principle: that preparation is the beginning of a relationship between the programme, the university, the district, and the leader, not a one-time certification event. The research that Timothy Drake, Bonnie Fusarelli, and their colleagues have generated consistently shows that the quality and duration of the principal internship is the single strongest predictor of early principal effectiveness. Cutting internships to reduce costs, as has happened in parts of the state, is one of the most expensive false economies in public education.

The second mistake is designing professional development for principals as if they were isolated individual learners rather than members of a team. The most effective principals on this list describe their work in terms of building collective capacity and shared culture, not individual excellence. Beckie Spears' approach to collective efficacy, Mariah Walker's philosophy of making room at the table, and Jason Johnson's Guiding Coalition model all reflect a team-based theory of school improvement. Professional development that does not help principals build those team skills is leaving the most important part of the work unaddressed.

To explore how Working Genius facilitation, delivered by Jonno White, can build the shared language and team awareness that principals need, email jonno@consultclarity.org.

The third mistake is assuming that what works for large urban NC districts translates directly to rural contexts. The rural districts led by Otis Smallwood, Eisa Cox, Kathy Amos, Brad Rice, and John Lassiter operate with fundamentally different constraints around staffing, funding, geography, and community trust. The principal pipeline problem is worse in rural areas because aspiring leaders often leave for larger districts with better pay and more professional development opportunities. Building teacher housing, as Smallwood did in Bertie County, or building a national platform from a natural disaster response, as Cox and Amos did after Hurricane Helene, are examples of rural superintendents solving leadership pipeline problems through locally specific means that no generic programme could have designed for them.

The fourth mistake is underinvesting in the assistant principalship as the primary pipeline for the principalship. Jan King's work through the Western Carolina University Principal Fellows programme, Debra Morris's work at UNC Charlotte's MSA programme, and Frederick Buskey's The Assistant Principal Podcast all point to the same gap: the AP role is where future principals are made, but it receives far less structural investment than the principalship itself. The NCPAPA's Future-Ready Leadership programme and Assistant Principal Accelerator are both attempts to address this, and the research emerging from Timothy Drake, Michael Little, and their colleagues at NC State is building the evidence base to support further investment.

Implementation Guide: How to Use This List

This directory is most useful when treated as a starting point for building relationships rather than a reading list. The thought leaders in North Carolina school leadership are accessible. Many of them are active on LinkedIn, many of them present at the NCSA, NCSSA, and NCPAPA state conferences, and many of them have contributed perspectives to EducationNC that are freely available and searchable.

If you are a principal seeking professional growth, the most direct path is through the organisations that the people on this list lead and contribute to. The NCPAPA's Future-Ready Leadership programme and Assistant Principal Accelerator are designed specifically for practising school leaders. The NC Principal Fellows Network and NC Principal of the Year Network connect current and past principal award recipients across the state. The NCSSA's Aspiring Superintendents Programme and the NC State NELA programme both offer pathways for principals ready to grow into district leadership.

If you are a superintendent or district leader, the research coming out of NC State is directly relevant to your work. Timothy Drake's writing on the principal internship, Michael Little's work on early-grades leadership, Jenn Ayscue's research on school integration and equity, and Lacey Seaton's work on culturally responsive leadership preparation are all available through NC State's College of Education website and through EducationNC. The Principal Working Conditions Survey being developed by Jeni Corn and the advisory group will, when launched, give you the data infrastructure to benchmark what your principals are experiencing against what the research shows they need.

If you are a school or district leader looking to build the team dynamics that make sustained school improvement possible, Jonno White, author of Step Up or Step Out (10,000+ copies sold) and Certified Working Genius Facilitator, works with leadership teams in schools, corporates, and nonprofits. The Working Genius framework, created by Patrick Lencioni and The Table Group and completed by more than 1.3 million people globally, is one of the most effective tools available for building the shared language and team awareness that underpins the kind of culture Mariah Walker, Jason Johnson, and Donna Bledsoe describe as central to their success.

Email jonno@consultclarity.org to start the conversation. Whether virtual or in person, international travel is often far more affordable than schools expect.

For more on building a school leadership pipeline that can sustain what the best leaders on this list are doing, read Jonno White's blog post "25 Crucial Fixes for School Leadership Pipeline Collapse" at consultclarity.org. For a broader look at outstanding public education leaders across the United States, read "50 Essential US Public Education Leaders to Follow" at 

Frequently Asked Questions

Who are the most influential school leadership researchers in North Carolina?

The most influential school leadership researchers based in North Carolina are centred at NC State University's College of Education. Bonnie Fusarelli leads the nationally recognised NELA principal preparation programme and has secured more than $41 million in funding for school leadership development across the state. Lance Fusarelli focuses on the politics of education and federal policy and is one of the most cited scholars nationally on the superintendency. Timothy Drake has spent fifteen years specifically studying principal preparation and early-grades leadership in North Carolina. Jenn Ayscue's research on school integration and equity has direct implications for how school leaders think about culture and enrolment. Michael Little's work on early childhood leadership is influencing how elementary principal preparation programmes are designed.

What is the NC Principal Fellows Program and who leads it?

The North Carolina Principal Fellows Program is a state-supported, forgivable loan programme that prepares future public school leaders through partnerships with eight universities across the state. Founded in 1993, the programme has produced more than 2,000 school leaders. It covers tuition, fees, and books for participants, as well as salary supplements and health benefits during a full-time, comprehensive administrative internship. Lauren Lampron was named Director of the NC Principal Fellows Program Commission in late 2023. The programme received $14.4 million in new funding in January 2025 to continue through 2032.

Which North Carolina principal has received the most significant national recognition?

As of June 2026, Jason Johnson of Orange High School holds both the 2025 Wells Fargo North Carolina Principal of the Year and the 2026 NASSP National High School Principal of the Year, making him the most nationally recognised practising NC principal at this time. Mariah Walker of Wake Young Women's Leadership Academy is the 2026 NC Principal of the Year and will compete nationally for the NASSP Distinguished Principal of the Year award in the coming year.

How does NC State's NELA programme differ from other principal preparation programmes?

NC State's Educational Leadership Academy focuses specifically on preparing and retaining principals in high-poverty, hard-to-staff, and historically low-performing schools. It has operated for more than fourteen years, received $14.4 million in new funding in January 2025 to continue through 2032, and is described by director Bonnie Fusarelli as preparing graduates to be problem solvers ready on day one to make the differences they want to make in schools. Each component is anchored in research-based best practices and designed to meet the specific contextualised needs of NC schools.

What is the best way for a school leadership team in North Carolina to build a stronger team culture?

Research consistently points to shared language, clear role alignment, and regular structured reflection as the foundations of strong school leadership team culture. The most effective principals on this list describe their work in terms of building collective capacity. One practical tool is the Working Genius framework, created by Patrick Lencioni and The Table Group, which gives leadership teams a shared language for understanding how each person contributes to the work.

Jonno White is a Certified Working Genius Facilitator who works with school leadership teams. Email jonno@consultclarity.org to discuss how this could work for your team.

Final Thoughts

North Carolina has built something genuinely unusual in the national school leadership landscape: a multi-decade, multi-institution infrastructure for developing, recognising, and supporting school leaders at every level. The people on this list are not operating in isolation. They are part of a system that, when it works well, means a principal in Bertie County has access to preparation programmes, peer networks, coaching, and research that would not exist without the ecosystem these forty-five people collectively maintain.

What the best leaders here share is not a method. It is a commitment to the people in their buildings. Mo Green talks about every child's constitutional right to a quality education. Donna Bledsoe talks about bringing joy. Otis Smallwood talks about keeping the main thing the main thing: student success. Jason Johnson leads with love. The language differs. The underlying conviction does not.

If you work in North Carolina schools, the practical next step is the same regardless of where you are in your career: find the people on this list who are working in your context, read what they have shared publicly, engage with the organisations they lead, and bring your own experience to the conversation. North Carolina's school leadership ecosystem is unusually open to that kind of cross-sector, cross-district exchange.

If your leadership team needs external support on culture, communication, or team dynamics, Jonno White, author of Step Up or Step Out (10,000+ copies sold) and Certified Working Genius Facilitator, works with schools globally. Email jonno@consultclarity.org to explore what that could look like for your team.

About the Author

Jonno White is a Certified Working Genius Facilitator, author of Step Up or Step Out, and leadership consultant who has worked with schools, corporates, and nonprofits around the world. His book Step Up or Step Out has sold over 10,000 copies globally, and his podcast The Leadership Conversations has featured 230+ episodes reaching listeners in 150+ countries. Jonno founded The 7 Questions Movement with 6,000+ participating leaders and achieved a 93.75% satisfaction rating for his Working Genius masterclass at the ASBA 2025 National Conference. Based in Brisbane, Australia, Jonno works globally and regularly travels for speaking and facilitation engagements. Organisations consistently find that international travel is far more affordable than expected.

To book Jonno for your next keynote, workshop, or facilitation session, email jonno@consultclarity.org.

Sources

Wallace Foundation (2021): How Principals Affect Students and Schools. NC State College of Education (January 2025): NC State Educational Leadership Academy (NELA) Receives $14.4M From North Carolina Principal Fellows Commission. NC Department of Public Instruction (April 2026): Orange County Administrator Named National Principal of the Year. EducationNC (October 2025): Person County's Rodney Peterson Named North Carolina's 2026 Superintendent of the Year. NC State College of Education / Educational Administration Quarterly (2019): NC State's Principal Leadership Academies: Context, Challenges, and Promising Practices, Fusarelli, Fusarelli, and Drake.

Next Read

If you found this list useful, the next step is exploring what the school leadership pipeline challenges mean in practical terms. The blog post "25 Crucial Fixes for School Leadership Pipeline Collapse" goes deep on the evidence-based strategies that school and district leaders can use to rebuild the pipeline from the inside. "The pipeline is not broken because people stopped caring about education. It is broken because the conditions that sustained it have quietly eroded over the past decade. What made the principalship worth aspiring to is still there. What made it sustainable has been stripped back."

Keep reading: https://www.consultclarity.org/post/school-leadership-pipeline-collapse