30 Outstanding School Principals to Follow on LinkedIn
- Jonno White
- Jun 11
- 25 min read
Last updated: June 2026
Knowing which school principals to follow on LinkedIn is more useful than it sounds. The best principal voices on the platform share what textbooks, conferences, and policy documents rarely capture: the lived reality of leading a school community through real challenges, on real days, with real stakes. This directory profiles 30 outstanding school principals and former principals whose LinkedIn presence offers genuine, practitioner-level insight for anyone who leads a school or works closely with those who do.
Following the right voices transforms a professional's LinkedIn feed from a passive scroll into an ongoing, self-directed professional development programme. As of June 2026, LinkedIn has more than 1.3 billion registered members globally and remains the dominant professional learning platform for educators at every level of school leadership. The challenge is not access to content: it is knowing whose content is worth your attention.
Jonno White, author of Step Up or Step Out (10,000+ copies sold), Certified Working Genius Facilitator, and leadership consultant who works with schools, corporates, and nonprofits around the world, compiled this directory to surface the practitioners who most deserve to be followed. If you work with school leaders and want to strengthen the leadership culture, communication, and team dynamics in a school you partner with, reach out to
This list is honest about one reality: the most active LinkedIn content creators in school leadership tend to be based in the United States, where the principal advocacy and professional development ecosystem produces significant public-facing output. Fourteen of the 30 people on this list are currently serving as building-level principals. The remaining 16 are former principals who now operate as consultants, authors, coaches, podcast hosts, or system leaders, and whose LinkedIn content remains deeply embedded in the day-to-day experience of running a school.
Why LinkedIn Has Become the Principal's Professional Learning Network
LinkedIn offers school leaders something professional development conferences and textbooks cannot: real-time, practitioner-generated insight from people in the same role, facing similar challenges, right now. A principal in rural Texas and a headteacher in the United Kingdom are both navigating teacher retention, AI in classrooms, and the pressure of maintaining school culture under resource constraints. When a principal in their second year reads a post from a National Principal of the Year describing how they handled a staff conflict, they get the kind of granular, honest reflection that most formal professional development carefully avoids.
For more on thought leaders shaping the broader educational landscape, check out my blog post '50 Essential Thought Leaders in Secondary Education (2026)' at:
Sustained professional community matters for principals in ways that one-day workshops simply do not replicate. The principal who follows five thoughtful LinkedIn voices in their specific domain, visits those posts weekly, and contributes occasional reflection of their own, builds a professional learning network that compounds in value over time. That is what this directory is designed to help you start.
If your school leadership team is navigating challenges that benefit from structured facilitation, Jonno White is available to work with teams globally through Working Genius sessions, DISC workshops, and StrengthsFinder facilitation. Email jonno@consultclarity.org.
How This List Was Compiled
Each person on this list was selected based on three criteria: a confirmed background as a building-level school principal, an active LinkedIn presence with original content published in 2025 or 2026, and a track record of sharing insight that practising school leaders find genuinely useful. The list includes both currently serving principals and former principals who continue to work directly with schools in practitioner-facing roles. People who have moved into pure research, higher education, or unrelated fields are not included, regardless of their historical credentials.
The list is weighted toward the United States because that is where LinkedIn principal creator culture is most developed. Non-US voices are included where they are genuinely active and their content has broad relevance. For UK-specific school leadership voices, see my blog post '50 Leading Thought Leaders in UK Education Leadership' at:
For voices on the pressures driving principals from the profession, see '45 Essential Thought Leaders on Principal Burnout' at:
Category 1: Nationally Recognised Sitting Principals (USA)
These are currently serving building-level principals whose work has drawn national recognition from NASSP, NAESP, or state-level principal associations in 2025 or 2026. Every person in this category is currently in a school, leading a real community, and posting about what that actually looks like.
The best sitting principals to follow on LinkedIn are those who share the work in progress, not just the victories. Their posts on chronic absenteeism, cell phone policies, teacher recognition, and equity close the gap between professional development theory and Monday morning reality.
1. Tony Cattani
Twenty-six years at Lenape High School in Medford, New Jersey, the last eighteen as principal, have made Tony Cattani one of the most studied school culture builders in American secondary education. Named the 2025-26 NASSP National High School Principal of the Year, Cattani built his reputation around a deceptively simple model: professional learning that is peer-driven, not programme-driven. His initiative of more than 3,000 peer classroom observations at Lenape, which he calls collegiality cafes, replaces the traditional evaluative observation with a collegial one, producing a culture where teachers learn from each other as the default mode rather than the exception.
His LinkedIn posts blend reflection on instructional leadership with a warmth about the Lenape community that makes him worth following even for principals who lead very different schools. He also hosts the Proud Principals Podcast, where he features school leaders from across the US.
Book Jonno White to deliver a Working Genius facilitation session for your school leadership team at jonno@consultclarity.org.
2. Damon Lewis
Dr Damon Lewis has led Ponus Ridge STEAM Academy in Norwalk, Connecticut, since 2015, including four years as assistant principal before that. His school's story is one of the most documented in recent American school leadership literature: chronic absenteeism dropping from 23 percent to 8.3 percent, driven not by policy enforcement but by home visits, culture building, and what Lewis describes as simply refusing to accept that any child choosing not to come to school is a problem with the child rather than an invitation to understand that child better.
Named the 2025-26 NASSP National Middle School Principal of the Year, his LinkedIn presence reflects the same orientation: practical, human, and grounded in the specific community his school serves. His posts address equity in access to accelerated programming, student belonging, and what collaborative school leadership actually requires from a principal who is still in the building every day.
3. Sonia Ruiz
Sonia Ruiz is in her fourth year as principal of Jane Addams Middle School in Bolingbrook, Illinois, where she was named the 2026 NASSP National Middle Level Principal of the Year following three consecutive years of the school achieving Exemplary Status in the top ten percent of Illinois schools. A proud Latina school leader and current Diversity and Equity Chair for the Illinois Principals Association, Ruiz has built a practice around what she describes as a lead-with-love philosophy: the belief that belonging is not a soft outcome to be measured alongside academic achievement but the precondition for it.
Her career began as a school social worker, which gives her posts a perspective on student wellbeing that is both research-grounded and deeply personal. Her LinkedIn activity addresses equity, collective responsibility, and the specific challenges of leading a school where demographics and expectations are both shifting simultaneously.
Organisations seeking a facilitator to support school leadership team culture can reach Jonno White at jonno@consultclarity.org.
4. Jason Johnson
Jason Johnson has served two terms as principal of Orange High School in Hillsborough, North Carolina, spending time in between as a school transformation coach with the NC Department of Public Instruction. Named the 2026 NASSP National High School Principal of the Year after being recognised as North Carolina's 2025 Wells Fargo Principal of the Year, Johnson's lead-with-love leadership philosophy places equity and student voice at the centre of every strategic decision.
Under his current tenure, Orange High exceeded its growth targets, raised its school letter grade, and increased proficiency across all racial groups. His LinkedIn posts are characterised by a directness about the structural dimensions of equity in public schools that many principals avoid in public-facing content, and a genuine warmth about the community he has chosen to serve. Johnson is also a 2026 advisor to the NC State Board of Education and state ambassador for public school advocacy.
5. Brad Gustafson
Brad Gustafson is a 2016 NAESP National Distinguished Principal and Minnesota's 2016 Principal of the Year, currently serving as an elementary principal with Wayzata Public Schools in Minnesota. Named to the NSBA 20 to Watch list and recognised with a Digital Innovation in Learning Award from EdSurge and Digital Promise, Gustafson has built a reputation for combining evidence-based instructional leadership with a genuine commitment to student voice and innovative learning design.
His posts are practical, warm, and directly applicable to elementary and middle-level principals looking to bridge the gap between aspiration and implementation. He is also the co-host of a weekly literacy-focused web series and the author of multiple books including Renegade Leadership (Corwin).
6. Mitch Gross
Mitch Gross became principal of Iowa City West High School on August 10, 2020, the morning of the Iowa derecho, in the middle of a pandemic and one of the most contested political moments in recent US history. His willingness to describe that start, and what he learned from it, characterises an unusually candid LinkedIn presence for a sitting high school principal. Named Iowa's 2026 High School Principal of the Year by School Administrators of Iowa, Gross has built a reputation for equity-centred instructional leadership, championing students' and teachers' ability to show up as their authentic selves, and creating systems that hold high expectations without reducing students to data points.
A former history teacher, city council member, and union negotiator, his posts bring a breadth of institutional perspective that few principal voices on LinkedIn match.
Hire Jonno White to facilitate a leadership team session at your school or conference by emailing jonno@consultclarity.org.
7. Terita Walker
Terita Walker has led East High School in Denver, Colorado, since 2021, navigating a school year in 2023 that included a shooting in which two of her deans were injured, followed by a community rebuilding process that has drawn national attention for its honesty and its results. A NASSP 2025-26 National High School Principal of the Year Finalist and president-elect of the Colorado Association of Secondary School Principals, Walker's approach to school leadership begins with what she describes as trust first: the belief that every relationship in a school community must be built before any improvement initiative has any chance of taking hold.
Her LinkedIn posts address school safety, inclusive culture, student empowerment, and the particular challenges of leading a comprehensive urban high school of 2,400 students with enormous demographic diversity.
8. Shauna Haney
Shauna Haney has been principal of Ogden High School in Ogden, Utah, since the pandemic arrived and immediately tested her retention instincts. Under her leadership, Ogden retained 90 percent of its teaching staff post-COVID, a figure that has made her a sought-after voice on teacher culture and recognition at the national level. A NASSP 2025-26 National High School Principal of the Year Finalist and two-time Teacher of the Year herself (2008 and 2013), Haney led Ogden to become one of Utah's first schools to implement a no cell phone policy.
The school's results on literacy, graduation, and multi-language learner achievement in advanced coursework have drawn recognition from the Utah State Board of Education. Her LinkedIn posts are practical and culture-focused, with a particular interest in how principals build and sustain the teacher environments that make everything else possible.
9. Angie Charboneau-Folch
Angie Charboneau-Folch is principal of the Integrated Arts Academy in Chaska, Minnesota, and was among the school leaders recognised at the NASSP 2026 National Education Leadership Awards in Washington, DC in April 2026. Her school's integration of arts learning across the curriculum reflects a leadership philosophy that holds student creativity and academic rigour as mutually reinforcing rather than competing priorities, a position she defends with both evidence and practice in her LinkedIn posts.
Her presence on LinkedIn offers a useful counterpoint to the data-heavy instructional leadership conversation that dominates most principal communities online, and her willingness to advocate publicly for arts-integrated schooling at national gatherings distinguishes her as a voice worth following.
Category 2: International Principal Voices
LinkedIn's school leadership community is global, but non-US voices remain underrepresented in most principal reading lists. These four international voices bring perspectives that US-based principals will find both challenging and practically useful.
Following international school leaders on LinkedIn is particularly valuable in 2026 because the questions facing school leaders globally are shared, but the responses to them vary in illuminating ways.
10. Peter Lynch
Peter Lynch is the principal of Sheldon School in the United Kingdom and one of the more consistently thoughtful UK headteacher voices currently active on LinkedIn. His posts in 2025 and 2026 address the human side of school leadership with an honesty that reflects the particular pressures facing UK school leaders: an accountability system under reform, a workforce under sustained pressure, and a culture conversation that has become simultaneously more urgent and more contested.
His April 2026 LinkedIn activity highlights the intersection of school culture, staff wellbeing, and the kind of leadership that makes people want to stay in a profession they care about. For UK context on the broader thought leadership landscape, check out my blog post '50 Leading Thought Leaders in UK Education Leadership' at:
11. Chris Light
Chris Light leads within the White Horse Federation in the United Kingdom and posts consistently on LinkedIn about school improvement and the conditions under which teachers and leaders do their best work. His June 2026 LinkedIn activity demonstrates a particular interest in how trust, culture, and accountability can coexist in a school system that has historically struggled to hold all three in balance.
His practical posts on RISE Discovery Mornings and school visit programmes offer a window into what evidence-informed school improvement looks like from inside a federation model, a structure that is becoming increasingly important in UK primary and secondary education.
Bring Jonno White to your next school leadership team day or conference by emailing jonno@consultclarity.org.
12. Dr Darnelle Pretorius
Dr Darnelle Pretorius is Principal of Swan Christian College in Middle Swan, Western Australia, the largest of SCEA's seven Perth schools. Her LinkedIn writing in 2026 has been among the most substantive from any sitting Australian school principal, with a widely shared post on the concept of grace in school leadership drawing significant engagement from Christian and non-Christian educators alike.
Her approach to school culture integrates theological formation with practical team leadership in ways that translate beyond the faith school context. Her posts are thoughtful, measured, and genuinely useful for any principal navigating the tension between institutional expectations and human flourishing.
13. Dr Neil Hopkin
Dr Neil Hopkin is Principal of Fortes Education's Sunmarke School in Dubai and one of the most active school principal voices on AI integration and the cognitive science of learning in the Middle East's rapidly growing international school market. Confirmed active on LinkedIn in 2025 and 2026, his posts address how schools in the Gulf region are responding to AI not as a distant policy question but as an immediate classroom reality.
His participation in the HP Cambridge Partnership for Education EdTech Fellowship and his work on safeguarding and responsible AI signal a leader who is engaging with the hardest questions in contemporary schooling rather than waiting for consensus to form. His perspective from one of the world's most internationally diverse school markets is genuinely different from the US and UK dominant conversation.
Organisations seeking to bring a global perspective on AI-ready leadership team development can contact Jonno White at jonno@consultclarity.org.
Category 3: Former Principals Turned Thought Leaders, Authors, and Speakers
The most widely followed school leadership voices on LinkedIn are former principals who have transitioned into consulting, speaking, coaching, or writing. Their advantage is time: they can reflect, publish, and engage in ways that sitting principals cannot. Their content is at its best when it stays close to the practitioner experience and avoids the drift toward motivational generality.
14. George Couros
George Couros is a former division principal in Parkland School Division, Alberta, Canada, now a globally recognised Innovative Teaching, Learning, and Leadership Consultant, speaker, and Adjunct Instructor at the University of Pennsylvania's Graduate School of Education. He is the author of The Innovator's Mindset (Dave Burgess Consulting, 2015), and co-author of What Makes a Great Principal (2024, co-authored with Katie Novak) and the Forward Together series.
With hundreds of thousands of LinkedIn followers globally, Couros is one of the most followed education voices on the platform, posting regularly on school culture, professional learning, and what great leadership looks like in practice. His April 2026 LinkedIn content addresses leadership in contentious times, community over division, and the intersection of AI and learning design.
15. Eric Sheninger
Eric Sheninger is the founder and CEO of Aspire Change EDU and the former award-winning principal of New Milford High School in New Jersey, where his school became a globally recognised model for innovative practices and digital leadership. A NASSP Digital Principal Award winner, CDE Top 30 recipient, Bammy Award winner, and Senior Fellow at the International Center for Leadership in Education, Sheninger has authored and co-authored multiple books on digital leadership, learning design, and instructional practice.
His LinkedIn profile has more than 18,000 followers with more than 2,000 posts, making him one of the most consistently active school leadership voices on the platform. His blog, A Principal's Reflections, has published continuously since his time as a sitting principal and remains a primary source for school leaders seeking evidence-informed perspectives on learning design, technology integration, and the evolving role of the instructional leader.
Engage Jonno White to deliver a keynote on leading humans in the age of AI at your next school leadership conference. Email jonno@consultclarity.org.
16. Jimmy Casas
Jimmy Casas served twenty-two years in school leadership, including fourteen years as principal of Bettendorf High School in Iowa, where the school was named one of the best high schools in the country three times by both Newsweek and US News and World Report. Named Iowa Secondary Principal of the Year in 2012 and a runner-up for the NASSP 2013 National Secondary Principal of the Year, Casas is now owner and CEO of J Casas and Associates and the author of eleven books.
These include the Washington Post bestselling book Culturize: Every Student. Every Day. Whatever It Takes, which has sold over 350,000 copies. His LinkedIn posts are characterised by the same directness and culture-first orientation that made Bettendorf a model school: short, practical, and aimed at helping principals connect what they believe about their community to the specific decisions they make each day.
17. Baruti Kafele
Principal Baruti Kafele served as a middle school and high school principal in New Jersey for almost fifteen years, including his leadership of Newark Tech, which he transformed from a school in need of improvement to a school recognised three times by US News and World Report as one of America's best high schools. This transformation earned him the Milken Educator Award, one of the most prestigious education awards in the United States.
He is the author of fourteen books, seven of which are ASCD bestsellers, and his most recent publication, What Is My Value Instructionally to the Teachers I Supervise?, addresses the instructional coaching dimension of principalship. The creator and host of the AP and New Principals Academy, streamed live every Saturday morning, Kafele reaches thousands of aspiring and current principals weekly. His Global Gurus Top 30 recognition from 2020 through 2025 confirms sustained peer recognition that extends well beyond the US.
18. Hamish Brewer
Hamish Brewer is a former award-winning principal at both the elementary and secondary level in Virginia, originally from New Zealand, and the author of Relentless: Changing Lives by Disrupting the Educational Norm (Dave Burgess Consulting). Affectionately known as the Relentless, Tattooed Skateboarding Principal, Brewer built his reputation on turnaround leadership and the conviction that leadership begins with relationships, not systems.
Named a NASSP Nationally Distinguished Principal and a United States NAESP Nationally Distinguished Principal, he is now a speaker, consultant, and Beachheads advisor to the New Zealand Trade Enterprise. His LinkedIn presence continues the high-energy, relationship-first culture message he delivered from inside school buildings, making him one of the more distinctive voices on the platform for principals who want a challenge to complacency alongside practical culture guidance.
Book Jonno White to work with your school leadership team on communication, Working Genius, or team dynamics at jonno@consultclarity.org.
19. Darrin Peppard
Darrin Peppard served as a high school principal and district superintendent in Wyoming before transitioning into speaking, coaching, and publishing. Named Wyoming Secondary School Principal of the Year by WASSP/NASSP in 2016 and the Jostens Renaissance Educator of the Year in 2015, he was inducted into the Jostens Renaissance Hall of Fame in 2019. The author of Road to Awesome: Empower, Lead, Change the Game and an adjunct faculty member at Fort Hays State University, Peppard's LinkedIn posts are among the most consistently engaged-with in the principal leadership community.
His content centres on the intersection of personal leadership growth and school culture, with a particular gift for articulating what it feels like to move from a reactive to an intentional leadership practice.
20. Todd Nesloney
Todd Nesloney served as a principal in Texas schools before becoming the Director of Culture and Strategic Leadership at the Texas Elementary Principals and Supervisors Association, where he now leads professional development for thousands of principals across the state. A White House Champion of Change and Top 10 Finalist for the John C. Maxwell Award, Nesloney is also the co-author of Kids Deserve It (Dave Burgess Consulting).
He runs a regular free webinar series for school leaders on topics ranging from hiring and retention to leading diverse learners. His LinkedIn presence is consistent and practical, regularly featuring co-presentations with sitting principals and direct invitations for school leaders to engage with specific challenges in real time.
Category 4: Podcasters, Platform Builders, and Community Leaders
These are former principals who have built platforms, communities, and resources that serve as primary professional learning ecosystems for practising principals. Their LinkedIn presence is often the gateway into a broader body of work that merits direct engagement.
21. William D. Parker
William D. Parker is the founder of Principal Matters LLC and the host of the Principal Matters podcast, which has surpassed 1.5 million total downloads and is consistently ranked among the top school leadership podcasts globally. A former Oklahoma principal and NASSP Oklahoma Assistant Principal of the Year in 2012, Parker now serves as Executive Director of Oklahoma's Association of Secondary Principals and Oklahoma's Middle Level Educator Association.
His LinkedIn posts are regular, thoughtful, and directly connected to the work of the podcast, providing school leaders with a consistent flow of practical leadership reflection. His June 2026 content addresses growth mindset in school leadership, the importance of staying connected to the classroom work, and the professional learning gains that come from sustained peer community.
Engage Jonno White as a keynote speaker for your next principals conference or leadership event at jonno@consultclarity.org.
22. Jen Schwanke
Jen Schwanke served as a principal in Ohio for seventeen years before becoming Deputy Superintendent of Dublin City Schools and a faculty member in educational administration at The Ohio State University. The co-host of the Principal Matters podcast and the author of five ASCD books including Trusted: Trust Pillars, Trust Killers, and the Secret to Successful Schools and The Teacher's Principal: How School Leaders Can Support and Motivate Their Teachers, Schwanke is one of the most prolific practitioner-authors in the principal leadership space.
Her LinkedIn posts are regular and original, drawing on a career that spans seventeen years of direct principalship, ongoing work with principals as a coach and consultant, and the sustained observation that comes from sitting at the intersection of school leadership research and school leadership practice.
23. Rachael George
Dr Rachael George is a former principal of Sandy Grade School in Oregon, which she led from being one of the lowest-ranked elementary schools in the state to recognised status over seven years, and is currently serving as Executive Director of Elementary Programs in the Oregon Trail School District. An ASCD Emerging Leader from the Class of 2015 and co-author of Principaled: Navigating the Leadership Learning Curve (Dave Burgess Consulting, 2020, co-authored with Kate Barker and Kourtney Ferrua) and She Leads: The Woman's Guide to a Career in Educational Leadership (co-authored with Majalise Tolan), George brings a practitioner's candour to the complex question of what equips aspiring and current principals to do the job well and stay in it.
Her background includes fighting wildfires with the US Forest Service before entering education, a combination that gives her writing on resilience, persistence, and overcoming barriers a distinctively grounded quality.
Category 5: Women School Leaders
Women are the majority of the teaching workforce in most countries and a growing proportion of building-level principals globally, yet remain substantially underrepresented in the most followed school leadership voices on LinkedIn. These entries specifically highlight women whose principal credentials and LinkedIn presence deserve wider recognition.
24. Kate Barker
Kate Barker is a former principal and co-author of Principaled: Navigating the Leadership Learning Curve (Dave Burgess Consulting, 2020), a book written by three practising principals, herself, Kourtney Ferrua, and Rachael George, specifically to address the practical and emotional realities of principalship that formal preparation programmes rarely surface. Her work focuses on the strategies, mindsets, and practices that help principals not just survive the role but flourish in it, with particular attention to the balance between self-care, leadership growth, and the relentless demands of running a school.
Her LinkedIn presence speaks directly to the principal community with the earned authority of someone who has done the job and reflected carefully on what it requires.
Bring Jonno White to work with your school leadership team on team dynamics and communication by emailing jonno@consultclarity.org.
25. Kourtney Ferrua
Kourtney Ferrua is a former principal and co-author of Principaled: Navigating the Leadership Learning Curve (Dave Burgess Consulting, 2020) alongside Kate Barker and Rachael George. Her contribution to the book, and to the ongoing conversation she maintains on LinkedIn, centres on the importance of finding and maintaining leadership balance: the insight that achievement and school culture are not competing goals but are each impossible without the other.
Her voice is particularly valuable for principals in their first five years who are navigating the gap between what they expected the role to require and what it actually demands. Her practical, experience-grounded posts offer the kind of honest peer reflection that structured mentoring programmes attempt to replicate but rarely do as authentically.
26. Liz Dozier
Liz Dozier is the former principal of Harper High School in Chicago, where she led a school community navigating the specific and devastating weight of gun violence affecting students, families, and staff simultaneously. Her leadership of Harper was documented in a widely shared National Public Radio series in 2013 that brought her approach to national attention. Now CEO of Chicago Beyond, a philanthropic organisation dedicated to expanding opportunity for young people in Chicago through research-informed investment, Dozier has become one of the most distinctive equity voices among former principals on LinkedIn.
Her posts address systemic barriers to equity, youth development, community partnerships, and the specific challenges of leading schools in under-resourced communities with the directness of someone who has lived the consequences of both failure and progress.
For school leadership teams working on equity and belonging, Jonno White facilitates Working Genius and DISC workshops globally. Email jonno@consultclarity.org.
Category 6: Equity and Culture Builders
These voices bring specific expertise in equity, school culture, and the pipeline challenges facing school leaders of colour and those leading in challenging contexts. Their LinkedIn presence reflects a commitment to the systemic dimensions of school leadership that individual practitioner posts sometimes miss.
27. Dr Tron Young
Dr Tron Young was named Middle School Principal of the Year for the state of Illinois in 2020 and has since become one of the most active voices on LinkedIn on the intersection of equity, school culture, and leadership development for school leaders of colour. Now serving as Assistant Superintendent for Alton School District in Illinois, Young is the founder of the Illinois Grow Summit, which specifically addresses the pipeline, retention, and support of educators and leaders of colour in Illinois schools.
He is also the founder and host of the Be The Thermostat Podcast. His LinkedIn posts in 2025 and 2026 address equity leadership, systemic change in schools, and the particular professional development gaps that school leaders of colour navigate.
28. Sherilynn Boehlert
Sherilynn Boehlert served as principal of Schoenbar Middle School in Ketchikan, Alaska, for many years, becoming both Alaska's 2025 Middle School Principal of the Year and a 2025-26 NASSP National Middle Level Principal of the Year Finalist. Under her leadership, Schoenbar was named a 2025 AMLE School of Distinction, reflecting a multi-year transformation process she documented publicly through AMLE publications and LinkedIn posts.
Her move into the Interim Superintendent role for the Ketchikan Gateway Borough School District in November 2025 reflects a wider recognition of her leadership capabilities across a school system serving a geographically remote and culturally diverse community. Her public writing on student-centred decision-making, inclusive leadership, and data-driven practice offers a model for how rural and remote school leaders can drive genuine improvement while staying rooted in community.
Category 7: Rural and Community-Rooted Principals
These voices reflect the school leadership realities of rural, small-town, and community-rooted contexts that are underrepresented in most school leadership LinkedIn discussions, which skew heavily toward urban and suburban settings.
29. Miguel Salazar
Dr Miguel Salazar has spent his career in Sundown, Texas, the same small rural community where he grew up, moving from math teacher and coach to assistant principal, high school principal, and then principal of Sundown Middle School, with a transition to superintendent of Sundown ISD from the 2026-27 school year. A NASSP 2025-26 National Middle Level Principal of the Year Finalist and Texas TASSP Middle School Principal of the Year, Salazar's approach to rural school leadership combines deep community roots with a sophisticated understanding of safety, culture, and belonging.
His April 2026 podcast with Raptor Technologies, focused on how proactive relationship-building transforms school safety from a reactive to a preventive practice, captures the essence of his LinkedIn presence: grounded, practical, and deeply connected to the specific community he serves.
30. Rod Sheppard
Rod Sheppard is the former principal of Florence Learning Center in Florence, Alabama, and was among the school leaders featured at the NASSP 2026 National Education Leadership Awards in Washington, DC in April 2026, where he spoke alongside sitting principals about strategies for advocating for public schools. His presence at NASSP's national gathering confirms both his standing in the principal community and his active engagement with professional networks.
A practitioner voice from the American South, his LinkedIn presence and professional activity represent the kind of building-level school leadership that rarely reaches national visibility but consistently shapes the experience of thousands of students.
Book Jonno White to deliver a keynote or facilitation session for your next school leadership event at jonno@consultclarity.org.
Notable Voices We Almost Included
Several prominent voices in education leadership deserve acknowledgement here. George Couros, included above, is already one of the most followed education voices in the world. The broader landscape of school leadership thought leaders, including researchers, headteachers, association leaders, and policy voices, is covered in more depth across related posts on this site. The focus of this list has remained deliberately on those with direct principalship experience and active LinkedIn presence, which means some highly influential figures whose primary contribution is through research, higher education, or system leadership are outside its scope.
Common Mistakes School Leaders Make on LinkedIn
School leaders get less from LinkedIn than they could because they approach it as a broadcast channel rather than a learning community. The most common mistake is posting announcements about the school, which serves the school's institutional profile but builds no professional learning network for the principal. The principal's LinkedIn presence is a different resource from the school's LinkedIn page, and conflating them produces content that neither serves well.
A second common mistake is following only the most prominent voices and never engaging with the mid-tier practitioners whose posts are often more practically specific and whose audiences are more genuinely reciprocal. The 30 people on this list include both, and the relative engagement value will depend on where you are in your leadership career.
A third mistake is passive consumption without application. Following a principal whose school achieved a 90 percent teacher retention rate post-COVID and reading her posts about teacher recognition and culture is genuinely useful only if the reading prompts a specific question or decision in your own building. The most effective LinkedIn learners treat good posts as prompts for reflection, not just information.
Jonno White facilitates Working Genius team sessions and DISC workshops for school leadership teams globally. If your team needs structured time to understand how they work together and where the friction points are, email jonno@consultclarity.org.
Implementation Guide: Building Your Principal LinkedIn Learning Network
Building a genuinely useful LinkedIn learning network as a school leader takes about ninety days of consistent effort and very little time per day. The process is specific.
Start by following ten of the thirty people on this list. Choose based on your current role and your most pressing leadership challenge. If you are a first-year principal, follow those with the most accessible practitioner content: William D. Parker, Jen Schwanke, Rachael George, and Kate Barker all post specifically for principals at various career stages and respond to comments from their audience. If you are a sitting principal focused on school culture and recognition, Shauna Haney, Tony Cattani, and Jimmy Casas will offer the most immediately applicable content.
In the second month, engage. Comment on one post per week with something specific rather than affirming. The LinkedIn algorithm treats substantive comments as a signal to show you more content from that voice, but more importantly, it connects you to the wider community of practitioners who engage with the same voices. School leadership on LinkedIn functions as a network of networks, and comments are how you move from passive reader to active participant.
In the third month, post one piece of original content. It does not need to be long. A short honest reflection on a decision you made, a challenge you navigated, or a question you are sitting with opens you to the reciprocal learning that makes LinkedIn worth the investment. The most valuable professional development many principals report is finding out that the challenge they thought was specific to their school is actually a shared experience with a community of solutions attached to it.
For school leadership teams that want structured professional development rather than independent online learning, Jonno White works with schools globally to deliver Working Genius facilitation, DISC workshops, and StrengthsFinder Amplified sessions. Email jonno@consultclarity.org to discuss what your team needs.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I know which school principals to follow on LinkedIn?
Start with principals whose schools face challenges similar to your own, whose career stage is close to yours, and whose content reflects a values alignment with the kind of school leader you want to become. The 30 people on this list cover a range of school types, career stages, and leadership contexts, so selecting five or six who speak directly to your current situation is the most practical starting point. Active engagement is more valuable than a large following list that you scroll past.
How often do the best school principals post on LinkedIn in 2026?
The most consistently valuable principal voices post between two and five times per week, with a mix of original reflections, responses to current education news, and engagement with other educators' content. As of 2026, LinkedIn's algorithm rewards original text posts and short-form video equally, with carousel posts continuing to achieve the highest average engagement rates. The principals and former principals on this list generally post at least weekly, which is sufficient to maintain a presence your algorithm will learn to prioritise.
Is following former principals on LinkedIn as useful as following sitting principals?
Yes, and in some respects more so. Former principals who now work as coaches, consultants, and authors have the time and distance to reflect on practice in ways that sitting principals cannot, and their content is often more structured and applicable. The best former principal voices, including George Couros, Eric Sheninger, Jimmy Casas, and Baruti Kafele, draw on years of direct experience in ways that remain immediately relevant to principals in the building today. The most valuable LinkedIn learning network combines both: sitting principals for current, real-time practice, and former practitioners for structured reflection.
What does a principal do on LinkedIn that makes them worth following?
The principal voices most worth following share: honest reflection on specific decisions and what they produced, practical frameworks and systems that other principals can adapt, direct engagement with current challenges in schools rather than evergreen motivational content, and substantive responses to other educators' posts that add insight rather than affirmation. The difference between a genuinely useful principal LinkedIn voice and a promotional one is whether the content would still be valuable if the person's name were removed from it.
How has LinkedIn changed school leadership professional development?
LinkedIn has made continuous, peer-generated professional development available to principals who previously had access only to periodic conference attendance and formal mentorship programmes, both of which are expensive and geographically constrained. A principal in rural Alaska or regional Australia now has daily access to the thinking of the US National Principal of the Year, a former Chicago urban school principal turned equity advocate, and a Dubai-based school leader navigating AI. The quality of professional learning available through LinkedIn in 2026 would have been institutionally impossible to replicate a decade ago.
Final Thoughts
The thirty school leaders on this list share one quality that no award programme, credential, or follower count fully captures: they have chosen to make their thinking about school leadership publicly available in a way that helps other principals without requiring anything in return. That is the definition of thought leadership in practice, and it is the reason their LinkedIn presence compounds in value over time.
Following these voices will not make you a better principal. Engaging with them, reflecting on what they say, applying specific ideas to specific decisions, and eventually contributing your own thinking to the community, will. LinkedIn is a tool. The work is still yours.
For more on principal wellbeing and what drives principals from the profession, check out '45 Essential Thought Leaders on Principal Burnout' at:
Next Read: If you lead a school and want to understand the broader research and policy landscape shaping secondary education globally, the next post worth your time is '50 Essential Thought Leaders in Secondary Education (2026).'
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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