This report focuses on four districts that participated in The Wallace Foundation’s Principal Pipeline Learning Community (PPLC). The PPLC initiative lasted from 2019 to 2023. During that time, the study team used surveys, interviews, and document analysis to follow districts as they developed and implemented pipelines.

This report is related to the implementation of principal pipelines and the last of a two-part series. Here, the study team focused on how districts approached sustainability in the final year of the PPLC. The study aimed to learn from central office leaders how they had woven principal-pipeline work into the district’s strategic plan. 

The study team held a series of informal discussions with PPLC consultants who had supported the districts throughout the initiative. They repeatedly heard that while some districts were operating full pipelines, others had gone back to the earliest stages of the work. 

Leadership turnover was a salient feature among the group that was held back, but there were exceptions. This led the research team to focus on sustainability to understand how in the face of ongoing change and uncertainties, some districts managed to not only continue principal pipelines but also thrive.

This report presents findings specifically focused on sustainability from interviews with the PPLC initiative leads in the four central offices. The case studies presented also rely on survey and interview data collected earlier during the PPLC initiative.