A Funder’s COVID-Era Effort to Support Black Principals Finds a Permanent Home, New Leader

TaraShaun Cain, executive director of the Black Principals Network.

The pandemic was tough on kids, teachers and families, but it was school principals who often stood in the direct line of fire. Principals had to oversee it all: school closures, the shift to online learning, locating students who went missing, reaching out to support families, navigating school reopenings, and preparing for traumatized students and unprecedented learning loss. It was particularly hard on Black and brown principals, given the disproportionate impact of the pandemic on their own families and communities. 

Early in the pandemic, Heather Harding, senior director for education grantmaking at Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Philanthropies, began hearing anecdotal accounts of Black principals playing multiple roles in their schools and communities.

“We heard about Black principals who were doing double duty because of how hard the Black community was hit by COVID,” Harding said. “We heard about principals who — along with making sure that kids and teachers were making the shift to virtual school — were doing food runs, providing health information, fielding calls from undocumented and homeless families, and being called on as trusted messengers.” 

Harding reached out to other education funders working in the area of racial equity, and learned they were hearing similar accounts. Black principals were clearly carrying a lot, and Harding wondered if there was anything that Schusterman could do to help. 

The result was the Black Principals Network. Launched by Schusterman in 2021, the network is an online forum where Black principals can find community, exchange ideas, and learn more about issues that affect their work. Schusterman seeded the project and got it up and running; just this month, the Black Principals Network was relaunched as a part of the Surge Institute, a nonprofit with a mission to educate and promote leaders of color. 

As an education funder, Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Philanthropies doesn’t typically run programs, but COVID created extraordinary circumstances — and extraordinary need. “We wanted to respond to those needs and not put pressure on other organizations that were already responding to the many needs,” said Harding. “So we designed and built this ourselves, always with the intention of finding a more appropriate partner who could run it.”

Still, supporting teachers and education leaders is Schusterman’s wheelhouse. Indeed, it is one of the factors that distinguishes the foundation’s giving. “The tagline is that Schusterman hearts teachers,” Harding said. “From the beginning of our work, we have been trying to build educator capacity to deliver on the promise of college and career-ready standards, and to ensure that the education system can better serve students who have been historically underserved—Black, Latino and students from low-income backgrounds. So in the universe of education funders, we are the instruction people.”

Promoting leaders of color 

The Surge Institute was created in 2014 to address the lack of leaders of color in the education system. Over 48% of school-aged children are African American or Latinx, but “just 17% of their teachers, 6% of their superintendents and 11% of their school board members look like them,” according to Surge’s website. One 2020 report found that 80% of U.S. principals are white.

To remedy that, the Surge Institute launched two education leadership development programs, the Surge Fellowship and Surge Academy. Surge is a Schusterman grantee; the organization also receives funding from Bloomberg Philanthropies, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, the Pritzker Children’s Initiative, the Walton Family Foundation and other funders.

TaraShaun Cain, who was recently named executive director of the relaunched Black Principals Network, participated as a Surge Fellow, completing the program in 2020. Cain, who emanates energy and enthusiasm, calls the Surge Fellowship “one of the most transformative and valuable development experiences I have had to date.” She says the fellowship “is a space created for leaders of color, to help us develop our voices to address the inequities we’re seeing in public education with the overall goal of creating a better experience for our students.”

Cain got a degree in business administration management, and started off in the corporate world after graduating from college. She volunteered as a tutor on weekends, and realized that education was her true calling. “I said to myself, ‘OK. I am spending all my spare time doing this, because this is what I really love,’” she said. “So I became a teacher. I took the pay cut. But it was the best decision I ever made.” 

Cain earned an education degree and worked as a middle school math teacher and mentor teacher for five years, then decided she wanted to get on the education leadership track so she could have even more of an impact. She earned a master of education in administration and supervision, and worked as a vice principal. She was appointed principal of the Joseph Lovett Elementary School in Chicago in 2018.

Who’s looking out for the leaders?

For Cain and other Black principals, 2020 packed a wallop. “There was the pandemic, and there was the George Floyd murder — there was all this heavy stuff going on,” she said. “You’re experiencing it as a leader, right, but also as a Black person serving Black and brown communities and leading staff, many of whom are Black educators themselves. You’re making sure the kids are taken care of and making sure your families are taken care of, you’re thinking about the resources and support they need. You’re also taking care of your staff so that they can continue, because they’re the ones that have the first contact with your babies. But who’s looking out for your leaders?” 

For Cain, the answer to that question was the Black Principals Network. She signed up as soon as she heard about it. “I joined the network as a way to get resources and ideas for how to approach the critical conversations that needed to happen,” she said. “I also wanted to get support as a leader so I could continue to be effective.” 

The Black Principals Network provides a forum for principals from around the country to share ideas and participate in regular workshops and webinars on a variety of topics. Participants could also access mental health support through a service created by a Black mental health professional.

This kind of work will continue to be critical, even as (or if) the pandemic fades. As Heather Harding points out, schools may have reopened, but for teachers and principals, there is plenty of hard work ahead. “I think many people feel like we’re kind of over the hump, or through the storm,” she said. “But educators are dealing with issues like learning loss, and the psychological after-effects of school closures on so many young people.” 

Cain also points out that as a Black principal in Chicago, she had a number of peers, but in many parts of the country, that isn’t the case. She wants the Black Principals Network to provide a refuge, a place to learn, recharge and build community. The virtual format makes it possible to reach leaders in all corners of the country; Cain is also hoping to organize in-person gatherings in the future.

Move fast and build things 

Philanthropies get a bad rap for being stuffy and wary of change — and the criticism is often justified. The Black Principals Network presents an example of a foundation moving quickly and innovating to meet a need.

During the height of the pandemic, when Heather Harding first began tracking the experiences of Black principals, she was surprised to learn that an organization like the Black Principals Network didn’t already exist. “Maybe it’s out there, but if it is, we couldn’t find it,” she said. So Schusterman stepped in to fill that gap themselves. 

Schusterman considered a number of organizations to host the program, and Surge emerged as the best fit. “We’re thrilled because Surge is already a Schusterman grantee so we know their work,” Harding said. “They were already working hard to build a network of Black and Latino education leaders — they are great at building community. We’re excited that they are excited to take this on.”