The Principal Follow-Up Survey:

The Principal Follow-Up Survey (PFS) is a follow-up survey of public and private elementary and secondary school principals who participated in the National Teacher and Principal Survey (NTPS) during the previous school year. Historically, the PFS has also been conducted the school year following the Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS), the predecessor survey to the NTPS.

The purpose of the PFS is to determine how many principals in the base (NTPS) school year still work as a principal in the same school during the following school year, how many moved to become a principal in another school, and how many left the principalship altogether. Another goal is to measure, from those who left the principalship, what percentage retired or sought work in another occupational field.

Information collected on this survey will help policymakers, researchers, and other education leaders to:

• measure principal retention and attrition; and
• understand the effects of school policies and practices on principals’ decisions to remain in or leave the profession.

The 2016–17 PFS sample included all schools whose principals completed 2015–16 NTPS questionnaires. Schools that had returned a completed 2015–16 NTPS principal questionnaire were mailed the PFS form in the Spring 2017. The last administration of the PFS occurred in 2021–22 and included all principals who completed the 2020–21 NTPS principal questionnaire. The 2021–22 questionnaires are online and can be downloaded from the NTPS Questionnaires page. The questionnaires for previous collections of PFS following past SASS administrations are available online and can be downloaded from the SASS Questionnaires page.