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Jeff Litz’s 30th year in Fairfax County Public Schools won’t just be spent as a high school principal, but as the new president of the district’s first administrators union.
The Fairfax County Federation of Principals, Supervisors, and Administrators is currently negotiating its first contract with the 180,000-student Virginia district. It’s one of four school administrators unions that recently formed in the state, following the lifting of a nearly 50-year collective bargaining ban. And Virginia is not alone.
Similar law changes, coupled with revisions to school policies post-COVID, have fueled an increase in the number of school administrators unions and contract negotiations nationwide.
Since 2020, 11 new union locals have joined the American Federation of School Administrators, which now represents some 25,000 school and district leaders in 150 chapters across the country, said communications director Scott Treibitz. The new locals are in Denver; Portland, Oregon; Seattle; San Diego; Rochester, Minnesota; Imperial Beach, California; Frisco, Colorado; Chula Vista, California; St. Louis, Missouri; and Chester, Pennsylvania, as well as Fairfax.
Other unions, like the Chicago Principals and Administrators Association, have existed for decades but recently negotiated their first contracts.
Litz, who helped create the 1,400-member Fairfax County administrators union after the state law changed, has managed contract negotiations since April.
“It’s been really eye-opening for me, and over the past two or three years, I’ve actually become pretty passionate about ensuring that working conditions exist so that we can really do our best work for kids,” he said. “It has been a lot of hard work, but it has been good work.”
Administrators unions have seen “a huge growth spurt since the pandemic,” Treibitz said. The federation’s membership was roughly 20,000 in 2020 and has grown by about 5,000, he said.
“Since COVID, there has been a foot on the [gas] pedal of school administrators to organize, and COVID played a key ingredient in that,” he said. “School districts were changing policies, and in order to operate, they had to negotiate with teachers unions, and any other work that had to happen was dumped on principals, assistant principals and all the central office folks.”
The Denver School Leaders Association was formed in 2020 and approved a collective bargaining agreement last year. The three-year contract includes a 4.5% cost-of-living adjustment, administrator stipends, $1,000 retention bonuses and a working group on school and leader safety, according to Denver Public Schools.
In Minnesota, the Association of Supervisors and Administrators of Rochester became the state’s first federation affiliate, in 2022. The union approved a three-year contract in 2024 that includes roughly a 3.5% raise each year.
The Fairfax County administrators union was founded as a federation affiliate in 2023, after the Virginia law change allowed local governments to grant employee unions collective bargaining rights. The district’s teachers unions have existed for decades and were able to negotiate contracts after the law changed, but the administrators union had to be created from scratch.
In 2023, about 24% of elementary and secondary school administrators were union members, according to the AFL-CIO. Nearly 70% of teachers were in a union in the 2020-21 school year, the latest data available from NCES shows. On average, unionized school leaders earned roughly $500 more per week than their non-union counterparts.
The Chicago Principals and Administrators Association was a professional membership organization for years but was able to collectively bargain after legislation to allow the practice was signed in 2023.
“For the first time, Chicago school leaders have a guaranteed, enforceable voice in policies that directly affect their schools and students,” said union President Kia Banks in a press release. “Over the years, principals were often made the face of policies they didn’t support, left to manage failing systems and even targeted with retaliation. Many felt isolated in their roles and unappreciated in their communities, factors that negatively impacted schools.”
The agreement — which still has to be approved by members and the school board — includes a retroactive 4% cost-of-living increase for the 2024-25 school year and baseline raises for the coming school year. It also creates more due-process protections for principals who face disciplinary actions.
Lack of voice and pay raises also fueled other administrator unions’ recent contract negotiations.
The Associated Administrators of Los Angeles is asking for higher pay to offset long work weeks. It also wants more compensation for additional assigned duties and flexible scheduling when staff are required to stay after hours to address student mental health. In December, the group organized under the umbrella of the Teamsters union after they said their voices went unheard, according to the Los Angeles Times.
“Administrators remain undervalued and underpaid. Many are working 60-plus hours a week, sacrificing work-life balance and mental health, without the recognition or compensation they deserve,” union President Maria Nichols wrote in an August member newsletter. “This is not sustainable. How is it that teachers receive an hourly rate for work beyond their contracted day, while administrators — also salaried employees — receive nothing?”
In Pittsfield, Massachusetts, administrators agreed to work at least one hour longer than their teachers each day in exchange for a 3.5% raise, in a contract approved in February. In Maryland, administrators with Prince George’s County Public Schools landed yearly raises and bonuses of up to $3,000 in a three-year contract that was ratified by members in April.
The United Administrators of San Francisco announced an impasse with its district in August. President Anna Klafter said school principals, supervisors and program administrators can earn up to $40,000 a year more in surrounding districts, are being tasked with extra responsibilities such as addressing student medical needs and have fewer support staff. These issues have contributed to a 30% annual turnover rate, according to the union.
“Our teachers got a really big raise — which we’re very happy they did — but while [they] were able to get a 5% raise last year, we were not,” she told The 74. “Now, we have teachers who are making more than their principals, and we have potential principals and leaders who aren’t willing to go into these roles, because they wouldn’t even be making as much money as they do as teachers.”
The national principal turnover rate declined from a high of 16% right after the pandemic to about 8% in the 2023-24 school year, according to the 2025 American School District Panel survey. The rate is still higher than pre-pandemic levels, which were roughly 3%.
“People don’t necessarily want to leave their jobs,” Treibitz said. “They’re just trying to find mechanisms to help protect them and help make their job a more sturdy job, because the changes are fast and furious.”
