The K-12 Dive Outlook on 2023

From pandemic academic recovery and calls to strengthen family engagement to the need for preventing cyberthreats and school violence, there’s no shortage of challenges facing the nation’s education system. At the same time, there is no direction from which those hurdles aren’t coming at administrators full-speed.

As 2023 gets underway and the K-12 sector faces looming deadlines for emergency pandemic funds, ongoing battles over curriculum and more, the following eight trends will be critical for education leaders to watch.

Planning for the end of ESSER funding

This year, expect to see school districts tap more of their federal American Rescue Plan funds to continue paying for pandemic recovery efforts while keeping an eye on meeting the final obligation deadline of Sept. 30, 2024. 

The ARP pocket of funding is the last and largest of three COVID-19 allocations totalling $189.5 billion. With the first obligation deadline having already passed and the second coming on Sept. 30, 2023, the clock is ticking for education leaders to budget historic levels of money effectively.

And as some researchers predict the emergency funding will run out before students'  academic needs are met, calls will likely arise for more local and state funding to help schools meet budget gaps. 

Some states and districts have already adjusted their funding models — or are considering doing so — to avoid a fiscal cliff after federal emergency funds end and to retain student and staff supports that were added during the pandemic.

“On the heels of three years of impact from COVID interruptions, states and districts are taking a closer look at the types of evidence of learning they gather on each student, and how that information is used to move the needle for every child," said Chris Minnich, CEO of NWEA, a nonprofit assessment and research organization, in a statement.

But as staffing shortages and student absences continue to hamper progress, budget certainty will become even more difficult.  Education leaders will need to balance goals for better student outcomes while still trying to meet their bottom lines.

Need grows for mental health supports

Mental health support, a primary concern for educators when students first re-entered the classroom after pandemic closures, continues to be top of mind right alongside academic recovery. 

As students report increased levels of depression and anxiety, schools have set priorities for psychoeducation in staff professional development, suicide prevention training, and integrating social-emotional learning in curricula.

To bolster their efforts, schools are receiving funds from sources like the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, passed in June after the massacre of 19 children and two teachers at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. 

However, there have been pockets of resistance to social-emotional learning, with some opponents calling it a guise for "critical-race theory" or an effort to control the social and emotional health of students. This has left schools in many locations, such as those in Florida, in situations where they are grappling with the best interest of their students on one hand and community pushback on the other.

Spike in shootings looms over school safety debates

In 2022, the nation saw an unprecedented number of school shootings alongside the most significant legislative effort in years to address the problem via the $13 billion Bipartisan Safer Communities Act.

Passage of the legislation came within a month of the May massacre of 19 students and two teachers at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. The nation’s second deadliest K-12 school shooting came just months before the 10-year anniversary of the worst, in which 20 children and six adults were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, in 2012.

The Bipartisan Safer Communities Act marks a significant investment in mental health and trauma care services, violence prevention efforts, and extracurricular, after-school, and summer programming. But lawmakers remain at odds on firearm regulations ranging from stricter background checks to sales prohibitions on certain weapons or accessories.

Alongside the ongoing debate over whether it's best to invest in hardening schools with reactive safety measures or to prioritize proactive measures that target root social and mental health factors before violence occurs, school safety is a multifaceted challenge with few clear solutions on the horizon.

K-12 and early ed collaborations on the rise

If the pandemic proved how essential early education and child care is to working parents and the U.S. economy, this year will offer hints of whether that momentum can be sustained. 

Although Congress could not agree to a plan for universal preschool and free child care for those most in need, 2022 saw progress in the awareness and expansion of early childhood education, including approval of universal preschool in New Mexico. 

At the same time, the field also experienced heightened pressure to respond to staff shortages, inflation, student and teacher illnesses, and setbacks in young children's school readiness skills.

Federal COVID-19 funding has given the field a temporary fiscal boost. According to the White House, the emergency funding helped 200,000 child care providers keep their doors open to as many as 9.5 million children while employing more than 1 million child care workers.

But as that funding dries up, states and localities will need to look at creative financing, such as combining revenue sources to build capacity for early education, panelists said during a July virtual session of the U.S. Office of Special Education Programs’ Leadership and Project Directors’ Conference. 

Other solutions being pursued include stronger collaborations among early education, child care and K-12 systems. Those partnerships could strengthen efforts for school readiness, workforce recruitment and retention, options for families, and more, according to early childhood advocates.

Teacher, staff shortage pressures continue

As teacher shortages persist — albeit in different ways — for districts and schools nationwide, education leaders will continue to explore a variety of strategies for an issue exacerbated by the pandemic. Superintendent turnover also skyrocketed 46% in the nation’s largest districts as leaders spent the past few years grappling with the pandemic, political polarization, school safety issues and staffing vacancies.

To better recruit, retain and diversify staff, districts will continue to develop registered teacher apprenticeships and grow-your-own programs — building on the traction gained in 2022.

Collectively, school districts are spending as much as $20 billion in ARP funds to improve the education workforce, according to FutureEd, a think tank at Georgetown University's McCourt School of Public Policy.

Will leaders continue to use more of their federal COVID-19 relief dollars on one-time retention or recruitment bonuses? Will they rethink their approaches to the way educators are compensated based upon what or where they teach? Or will policymakers just consider raising the bar for teacher pay overall?

Regardless, data to track whether these strategies are actually working is thus far largely absent. To meet that need, some states, such as California, are beginning to require districts to report details on teacher shortages, although a federal component to amass this data is still lacking.

Test scores show uphill battle for academic recovery

Schools are continuing to wrestle with getting students back on track as recent assessments have confirmed the negative impact of COVID-19 on academic achievement. According to results from the Nation's Report Card, 2022 federal assessment scores show declines across most states in both reading and math at grades 4 and 8. 

Bringing affected students up to par through interventions like tutoring, accelerated learning and summer programs remains a focus. Schools are also experimenting with schedules, including lengthening the school day or even year, to reverse academic declines.

Researchers and assessment experts have said catching students up will be a multi-year effort that lives well into 2023 and beyond.

Family engagement a focus amid growing politicization

Improving family engagement will be a necessary tool to combat the public’s declining trust in the K-12 education system, according to the Hunt Institute, an independent nonprofit seeking to improve education policy. The dip in public trust worsened over the pandemic, attributed to debates surrounding virus mitigation protocols in schools and ongoing efforts to limit classroom discussions around race and LGBTQ issues.

Out of the pandemic, parent activism emerged as “parental rights” bills popped up in state legislatures nationwide. More than 20 organizations, including the National Association of Family, School, and Community Engagement, have denounced the politicization of family engagement.

As district leaders navigate politically divided communities, federal leaders are debating how to help localities with family engagement. To that end, the U.S. Education Department established a National Parents and Families Engagement Council, only to quickly disband it before the group even held its first meeting.

The council's dissolution came after a lawsuit filed by conservative groups arguing that the group lacked balanced perspectives when the U.S. Department of Education established the National Parents and Families Engagement Council. The Education Department had created the group “to facilitate strong and effective relationships between schools and parents, families and caregivers,” said the agency.

Family engagement organizations remain determined to push for federal resources and support to help districts move through an increasingly challenging landscape.

School cybersecurity threats multiplying

School districts remain among the most popular and vulnerable targets for cyberattacks. Ransomware attacks — in which a target’s data is encrypted and locked by a hacker who then demands a ransom in exchange for its return — have been particularly prevalent, given the amount of valuable personal data schools have from employees, students and families, as well as the lack of cybersecurity funding and resources in the education sector.

The past year has seen the Los Angeles Unified School District fall victim to ransomware and struggle with the fallout and impact of the attack — which included perpetrators Vice Society leaking stolen data online, including Social Security numbers and W-9 forms.

While the FBI, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and Multi-State Information Sharing Analysis Center discourage paying a ransom because there’s no guarantee the files being held will ultimately be recovered, the critical nature of those files often leaves districts feeling they have no choice. In December, the Little Rock School District in Arkansas did so at a hefty $250,000.

The Federal Communications Commission has taken notice, however, and is currently weighing the addition of cybersecurity to services covered by its E-rate program. Awareness is also growing around best practices, such as maintaining an offline backup of a school or district’s network in case of attack. Alongside ongoing pressure from the U.S. Government Accountability Office for federal agencies to do more to address the threat, 2023 is likely to be an eventful year for K-12 cybersecurity.

Perhaps now more than ever, the superintendency has become a veritable hot seat.

Between 2018-2020 and 2020-2022, turnover for the top job at the nation’s largest school districts spiked 46%. The most recent results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress highlighted how deeply the COVID-19 pandemic impacted learning. Additionally, 2022 saw school shooting incidents reach an unprecedented high.

Still, district leaders nationwide are continuing to rise to the occasion and navigate these hurdles and other demands in innovative ways. Based on their track records, their approaches to top issues facing K-12, and the challenges they face, here are five superintendents to keep an eye on in 2023.

Michael Lubelfeld, North Shore District #112 in Illinois

Going on his fifth year as superintendent of North Shore District #112 in Highland Park, Illinois — and his 13th year leading school districts in the state overall — Michael Lubelfeld has racked up an impressive array of accomplishments during his tenure in the 3,700-student district. 

Most recently, in a 2022 ballot referendum, his success in engaging his community helped the district net $114.4 million in bonds for a variety of construction and improvement projects with 72% voter approval.

This past summer, Lubelfeld also took action to engage his school community in discussions on safety and security improvements in school buildings after a gunman killed seven and wounded 48 during a local Independence Day parade in July. Like many districts, his was already on edge from the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, barely two months prior.

Alongside engaging with security consultants on a review of hard measures like school locking mechanisms and cameras, Lubelfeld also prioritized increasing the district’s staff of mental health professionals from XX social workers and psychologists to nearly 30. The district also implemented student mental health assessments at the start of the year for the first time to identify risk factors and arrange mental health interventions and treatments for students who need them, Lubelfeld told the Chicago Sun-Times.

Alex Marrero, Denver Public Schools in Colorado

Alex Marrero took the helm at Denver Public Schools in 2021 after a decade of major reforms in Colorado’s largest district.

As Marrero settles into the role, can he reconcile the division these reforms created while building upon the district’s gains from these major changes?

A study released in December by the University of Colorado Denver found the district's significant school choice and accountability reforms between 2008 and 2019 increased the four-year high school graduation rates from 43% in 2008 to 71% in 2019.

The district saw academic gains, too, the study said. Before 2007, Denver Public Schools ranked below the 5th percentile of districts statewide in standardized assessments in both English Language Arts and math. But in 2018-19, the district rose dramatically, to the 60th percentile in ELA and the 63rd percentile in math. 

Now, more than half of the nearly 200 DPS schools are “district-authorized charter schools or semi-autonomous innovation schools,” according to the study. Under these reforms, the study found the district created 65 new schools, while 30 others were restarted or replaced.

But the district has since ceased some of those reforms and is now navigating the challenges from quickly opening a large number of schools before the number of school-age children declined in the area, Colorado Public Radio reported. 

Amid all these changes, Marrero must also work with a board that has a reputation for being contentious.

Gary Patterson, Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District in Texas

Following the May shooting that took the lives of 19 students and two teachers at Robb Elementary School, many education leaders in Texas’ Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District came under scrutiny and were either fired or resigned. The superintendent at the time of the shooting, Hal Harrell, has since retired.

Filling his shoes as interim superintendent is Gary Patterson, who many are looking to as the community heals and doubles down on its school safety efforts amid a backdrop of intense state and federal debate over school and firearm safety catalyzed by the tragedy.

Patterson has previously served as interim superintendent at six different districts within the span of seven years, leading districts through challenges such as COVID-19. He said, however, that previous obstacles he has led through do not compare to the challenge he is facing in his current position.

"There is no playbook for this," Patterson told ABC News. "There is no curriculum. There is no talking points."

Iranetta Wright, Cincinnati Public Schools in Ohio  

Even before stepping into the superintendency at the 36,000-student school district last spring, Iranetta Rayborn Wright outlined a 100-day plan for her transition as head of the fastest-growing large city district in Ohio. 

Part of that plan included visiting all 65 school campuses, engaging with 3,500 people, and reviewing feedback from a survey of 1,100 respondents. The input she received helped the district center a focus around getting back to the basics of ABC — academics, behavior and culture.

In academics, the district made some pre-pandemic gains, according to its website, but an undated Ohio Department of Education webpage said Cincinnati Public Schools needs support to meet state standards in academic achievement. 

To help raise academic rigor and access, the CPS Board of Education set priorities for student learning over the next three to five years. Those goals include: 

• Increasing 3rd grade reading proficiency.
• Closing the 6th grade racial gap in reading proficiency.
• Increasing proficiency for students taking Algebra 1 for the first time on the Ohio State Test.
• Increasing the number of African American, Hispanic and multicultural students graduating with college credits or workforce credentials.
• Increasing the graduation rate. 

The district's work to improve behavior and culture is already underway. Wright introduced the Be Present! Initiative last year, which encourages the entire school and local community to become involved in supporting students and helping them succeed. 

“We want to galvanize our entire community so that they can provide support and wrap their arms around our students,” Wright told K-12 Dive in August.

One activity under this program — Read 2 Lead — welcomes community residents and businesses to volunteer as literacy tutors during school hours. Another activity titled CPS Moves is offered as a fun way for staff and students to be physically and mentally active through dancing between lessons, jumping rope, mindfulness and more.

The district is also focusing on prioritizing student and staff social-emotional needs, as well as sharing mental health resources with families. Promoting celebrations, respect, learning and recognition of individuals will be core to efforts at building supportive and welcoming cultures.

“Not every parent is comfortable with what we’re doing right now in education," but every adult can understand the benefit of letting students know they are valued and cared about, Wright said.

Verletta White, Roanoke City Public Schools in Virginia

Just as the pandemic began in 2020, Roanoke City Public Schools hired Verletta White to be its superintendent overseeing the 14,000-student district in central Virginia. White previously served as the interim superintendent of Baltimore County Public Schools from 2017 to 2019.

As education leaders juggle the growing politicization of schools, White said in a November interview that she seeks to find commonalities while also discussing “collective pain points” as a superintendent in her community. 

“We do have to listen, and we can't just shut out the side that we disagree with or that disagrees with us,” White said. 

Specifically in Roanoke City, she said, there is agreement on the need to invest more in Career and Technical Education opportunities for students. Once she found this issue to be a bipartisan topic in her community, it allowed her to further lay the groundwork and create a new equity and action plan for Roanoke City schools. The district is developing a community engagement center, too, she said. 

“So we may not agree on every point,” White said. “But when you do, and you can find common ground, then you can be open to some of the other conversations, as well, and the walls kind of come down.”

As the latter half of the 2022-23 school year gets underway, principals nationwide face a veritable phalanx of challenges. Across the board, the concerns are familiar, including fostering positive school culture to support engagement and achievement, closing the gap on pandemic-related learning loss, creating equitable access to enrichment programming, and providing wraparound services to reengage and support those most at-risk.

The following five principals are leaders you’ll want to keep an eye on as we launch into the new year.

Shelley Andres, Bonner School in Bonner, Montana

During a ceremony last fall in Washington, D.C., honoring the 2022 Class of National Distinguished Principals, Shelley Andres, elementary principal of Bonner School in Montana, received a bell. The bell, she said in an interview on the school's website, is a reminder of the honor she has in serving students, staff and families.

"Bonner School’s positive and welcoming culture reflects the way Mrs. Andres leads with kindness, generosity, and a tireless work ethic," the article said.

The 350-student pre-K-8th grade school's close-knit and family-like atmosphere has helped the one-school district in its staff recruitment efforts and push for academic achievement, according to a profile of Andres written for the National Distinguished Principals program through the National Association of Elementary School Principals.

The district, which is in a former logging community, faces challenges such as high poverty, a significant transient population and growing special education needs. 

With the assistance of a statewide literacy grant, Andres developed a new framework for literacy instruction at Bonner. As a result, there's been a 13% increase in students receiving generalized supports and a 14% decrease in students needing more intensive support. 

Andres was also instrumental in securing a $1.25 million grant in 2019 to create a new pre-K classroom for 30 4-year-olds, as well as expanded literacy professional development for staff.

Andres is the 2022-23 president of the School Administrators of Montana and a former board member of the Montana Association of Elementary and Middle School Principals.

Cynthia Cardenas, Lincoln Park High School in Brownsville, Texas

After over two decades of serving as an educator in Texas' Brownsville Independent School District and 14 years as a campus administrator at all school levels, Cynthia Cardenas thought she had seen it all. That changed when she was hired almost two years ago as principal of Lincoln Park High School, which has a student body that is made up entirely of pregnant or teenage mothers who are juggling raising a child along with trying to graduate high school.

"This is a different ballgame," Cardenas said. "The strategies that we need to use to educate our students to break the cycle, to empower them, are different. Because at this point, they don't feel confident, they don't feel they can graduate from high school, they don't feel that they are capable of going to college."

Cardenas, along with her staff, aims to change that. Everything from the school's curriculum to its enrichment and environment is crafted with the teenage mothers' daily challenges in mind. Those include little sleep, pediatrician and sonogram appointments, judgment from the broader community, and sometimes even resistance from their own families in earning a diploma.

Due to the school's small student enrollment of only 63 students, Cardenas works with a tight budget alongside larger schools within the district that receive more resources, she said. As a result, a big part of Cardenas' job is advocating for the needs of her students, all of whom are considered high-risk.

"We have a skeleton crew," Cardenas said. The school has only nine teachers and one campus administrator, along with a few additional staffers. Students interested in career training or taking college-level courses are bused to other school campuses to take advantage of those opportunities. Additionally, the school provides on-site child care for students' children up to 18 months old, supervised by a certified teacher and four BISD teacher assistants.

"So we try to be teachers. We try to be counselors. We try to be doctors and mothers and fathers and everything at the same time," Cardenas said.

Mary Fulp, Colony High School in Palmer, Alaska

Mary Fulp has spent 15 of her 17 years as a principal in Alaska’s Matanuska-Susitna Borough School District leading the 594-student Colony Middle School with a firm focus on school culture. This school year, she took a new position in the district leading the 1,015-student Colony High School, where many of her former students attend.

The 2022 Alaska Principal of the Year has been described by her district’s superintendent, Randy Trani, as “uncompromising” in her expectations for student achievement and growth mindset development.

Writing for NASSP in October, Fulp noted the middle school years are a key period to reinforce kindness and prevent bullying behaviors, as the high school transition can also be particularly difficult for students and that the middle school years are a key period to reinforce kindness and prevent bullying behaviors. This, she wrote, makes school culture all the more important.

Recognizing the prevalence of technology and social media in students’ lives, she included a digital citizenship course at the middle school level and also encouraged students to “THINK” about whether their online posts are “True, Helpful, Inspiring, Necessary, and Kind” before they post them.

To further provide a platform for student voice at Colony Middle School, she hosted “Knights of the Roundtable” meetings — named for the school’s mascot — in which student representatives can share feedback.

In August, she told District Administration she believes her job as a leader is to identify the unique qualities of students and staff and nurture them so everyone recognizes they have something to offer. To that end, she starts each school year asking students and staff what they’ll do to make the school a better place, what one uniquely wonderful thing about them is, and who they are when at their very best.

Aaron Huff, Bosse High School in Evansville, Indiana

Now in his fifth year as leader of the 776-student Benjamin Bosse High School in Evansville, Indiana, Aaron Huff communicates the important roles that staff, families, students and the community play in supporting academic and social-emotional outcomes.

One such effort is a partnership the school has developed with car manufacturer Toyota. Called 4T Academy, this advanced manufacturing course for juniors and seniors provides hands-on activities for industrial robotics, computer automated design, hydraulics and more.

Students can visit plants, and seniors have the opportunity for on-the-job training in manufacturing assembly, body welding and painting — which can lead to high-paying jobs after high school. 

More broadly, Huff, who began his education career as an after-school program coordinator, uses an equity lens in his work. He does this by encouraging staff to reflect on their upbringing and how they can diminish isolation and separation of races and cultures, Huff told podcast host Bill Ziegler in 2021.

"We just really put a few focal questions around, really, what it is we want our kids to know and be able to do. And then we also thought about how does the … lens by which you see the world impact the way you approach kids?" Huff told Ziegler. 

Late last year, Huff was named president of the National Association of Secondary School Principals. In that role, he said, he will focus on expanding the voice and participation of people of color. Additionally, he plans to highlight public-private partnerships for better collaborations among schools, employers and higher education, according to an interview with NASSP.

"I also want to focus on strengthening the collective voice of principals at all levels. We face the same challenges," Huff told NASSP. "The question is how do we engage those folks who aren’t engaged? There is power in numbers."

Miguel Marco, Helen Wittmann Elementary in Cerritos, California

During Miguel Marco’s time as the principal of the 540-student Helen Wittmann Elementary School in California, he has made school enrichment and community engagement a key focus of his leadership.

That work contributed to Marco’s recognition in 2022 as one of nine recipients of the Terrel H. Bell Award for Outstanding School Leadership from the U.S. Department of Education. 

When he first became principal at Wittmann in 2014, Marco surveyed his school community and discovered students wanted more hands-on, engaging activities. Together, Marco and community partners created over 20 student enrichment programs, including robotics and sports programming for during and after the school day.

Huge congratulations to Principal Miguel Marco of Wittmann Elementary in Cerritos--honored today as one of nine recipients of the prestigious Terrel H. Bell Award for Outstanding School Leadership, as part of the 2022 National Blue Ribbon Schools Program awards ceremony. ????????⭐ pic.twitter.com/kTUrmNnJDp

— CA Department of Education (@CADeptEd) November 3, 2022

“I’ve definitely learned from my students and from my own experience that the enrichment experience shouldn’t be isolated to the kid who’s classified as a GATE (Gifted and Talented Education) student,” Marco said in a November interview with EdSource.

Marco also holds regular “Coffee with the Principal” open forums with families to share information, listen to concerns, and address any pressing issues.

Through his enrichment-centric focus, Marco remains committed to keeping students excited about coming to school every day — especially in the face of learning loss recovery efforts. 

“But we’re not going to stop students from taking band or going to coding or the library. Those are the first places a lot of kids get pulled out of, but they make the kid want to show up to school, too,” he told EdSource. “The desire to want to be at school is much more important than how quickly they learn their math facts.”