The squeaky wheel gets the grease, as they say -- assuming the noise is the problem. In schools, the squeaky wheels are easy to identify. They are the teachers who ask questions, push back on decisions, point out when something isn't working – or isn't working as intended – and ask why the school is adopting a new initiative in the first place. They suggest different ways of doing things and sometimes say what everyone else in the room is afraid to. They volunteer for committees and then get frustrated when those committees don't accomplish much. They care about decisions that don't directly affect them and worry about things that aren't technically part of their jobs.
Thus, the noise is not always a problem. Sometimes it is evidence of investment.
For school leaders, the more troubling moment should be when the noise stops. Good teachers don't keep pushing because they enjoy being difficult. They push because they are knowledgeable about their profession and unwilling to stop caring about the quality of the education their schools provide. They believe the problem can be fixed, the conversation is worth having, and the school can do better. They bring professional knowledge to the conversation -- what they know from experience, what they see happening with students, and what they understand about current research and best practices in education. If you think about it, there is a certain optimism involved in continuing to push for change, even if that optimism sounds a lot like complaining. Unfortunately for school leaders, many of these optimists ultimately leave, taking with them precisely the knowledge, perspective, and commitment their schools can least afford to lose.
But leaders take note: A teacher can leave an institution psychologically long before leaving it physically. This doesn't mean that a good teacher suddenly becomes a bad one. In fact, the change may be almost imperceptible from the classroom. The teacher continues to plan and teach excellent lessons, support students, meet deadlines, answer parent emails, and fulfill every responsibility of the job. What changes is engagement with everything beyond the job.
Leaders know that schools rely on an enormous amount of work that no contract could ever capture. Strong teachers mentor new colleagues, serve on committees, develop curriculum, lead initiatives, advise clubs, attend games and performances, organize events, support colleagues, and show up for students, even the ones they do not teach. They read proposals and policies carefully because they understand how decisions made in a conference room will actually play out in classrooms. They identify problems and offer solutions grounded in experience and professional knowledge. They do all of this because they see themselves as responsible not only for their own classes, but for the school as a whole, and because they find real joy in being part of it.
That joy begins to disappear, though, when their contributions are repeatedly dismissed, their expertise is undervalued, or they begin to understand that speaking up may come at a professional cost. When that happens, the school loses far more than a few volunteers or committee members. It loses the ideas, expertise, energy, and leadership of someone who once cared enough to give more than the job required. And because so much of that work is directed toward making the school better for students, the loss does not stop with the teacher. A school cannot separate the engagement of its strongest teachers from the experiences and outcomes of the students it says are at the center of every decision.
And don’t confuse compliance with engagement. A teacher who has stopped questioning decisions may look happier. A faculty meeting with less disagreement may feel more productive. An administrator may feel some relief when a persistent critic becomes quieter. But quieter doesn't mean happier, and it certainly doesn't mean more engaged. Often it means that speaking up no longer seems worth the effort.
The professionalism of good teachers can make this easy to miss. They continue to teach well, hold students to high standards, and take their responsibilities seriously even as their investment in the institution fades. But the school has lost something along the way: the extra thought, the follow-up question, the willingness to take on something that technically belongs to someone else. It has lost some of the sense that this is our school rather than simply a school.
Of course, not every complaint is useful and not every criticism is justified. Some people really do complain too much. Part of being an educational leader is learning to distinguish between chronic negativity and the frustration that can come from deep investment in a school. Not every concern requires a change in direction, and not every suggestion should be adopted. But there is a significant difference between disagreeing with a teacher and leaving that teacher feeling that speaking up was pointless, or even professionally harmful.
The best teachers don't need to get their way to remain engaged. They do need to know that their experience and expertise are taken seriously. That matters for students, too. Teachers are often the people closest to the consequences of school decisions: they see what helps students learn, what gets in their way, and which well-intentioned policies simply do not or will not work as intended. When that expertise disappears from the conversation, schools lose information that can directly shape students' experiences and outcomes.
The goal of leadership should never be to create a faculty that is easy to manage. It should be to create one that is invested enough to care, confident enough to question, and trusting enough to disagree. A squeaky wheel may be frustrating, but the noise is often a sign that something needs to be addressed -- and that someone still cares deeply enough to address it. Leaders should worry less about the squeaking and more about what it means for the whole community when it stops.
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