Chain of command

School board members learn early in their board service about the school district chain of command. As the elected representatives of the community, board members want to help their constituents. When inevitably confronted at a Little League baseball game or the community farmers market with parent complaints or problems, board members must resist the urge to get involved. Instead, they should tell the parents to talk to the teacher first, then the principal, and then the superintendent. If the superintendent decides it needs board attention, the board will consider the matter.

Reinforcing the chain of command with school board members makes sense: It prevents them from engaging in district operational issues where they don’t belong.

Chain of command originated as a military term used to describe the direct line of authority and communication from superior to subordinate. In this scenario, teachers are the subordinates, the foot soldiers in the trenches. They follow orders, and their decisions can be bucked up to the next level if someone is unhappy.

With this authority structure in place in many of our school districts, it’s little wonder that teachers often are unlikely to see themselves as leaders. This is especially true when the traditional path to leadership in education requires teachers to leave the classroom.

Given the fact that most education reforms are doomed without teacher approval and participation, raising questions of how to encourage teacher leadership are not new. In fact, go to our Browsing section to read about an article from a 2014 Kappan issue focused on the same topic we are examining here a decade or so later.

The answers to these questions — provide leadership opportunities bolstered by tangible support and compensation — also help school districts solve another pressing issue: attracting and retaining teachers.

The articles in this issue look at teacher leadership from several perspectives, including the unacknowledged leadership of special education teachers and a first-person account of how a relatively new teacher navigated her new role as department head.

What can teacher leadership look like when it’s done as systemic change? “Experts Down the Hall,” and “Reimagining the teaching,” recount district programs in Talladega, Alabama, and Anaheim, California, that successfully encourage their teachers to become leaders. The results in improved academic achievement and other measures brought about by the initiatives show what happens when teachers have clear and supported avenues to leadership.

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This article appears in the Summer 2026 issue of Kappan, Vol. 107, No. 7-8.