An assistant principal is a school administrator who works under the principal or head of school and carries the duties the top job cannot hold alone: student discipline, day-to-day operations, and parts of the instructional program.
At a private or charter school the same core job can stretch wider, because the leadership team behind the head of school can be small.
This guide covers what the work involves, how it differs by sector, and how teachers move into it.
What is an assistant principal?
An assistant principal is the second administrator in a school's leadership team: an assistant to the principal or head of school, with delegated authority over students, staff or operations rather than a clerical support role.
The job appears under several titles — assistant principal, vice principal, associate principal and, at some independent schools, assistant head of school.
Some schools split the same duties instead, handing student culture to a dean of students and instructional leadership to a dean of academics or an instructional coach.
The national counts we have are for principals, not assistant principals.
NCES counted about 24,040 private school principals (full- and part-time head count) in 2020-21, against about 91,900 public school principals, with charter schools folded into the public totals.
Our research found no national count of assistant principals at private and charter schools, and no data on how often the role exists at a charter school versus a small private school.
What does not change is the position itself: an assistant principal reports to the principal or head of school and exercises the authority that person delegates, which is why the same title can describe different jobs at different schools.
Where the numbers on this page come from
What are an assistant principal's duties?
An assistant principal's work runs across three buckets — students, operations and instruction — and the principal or head of school sets the split.
- Student discipline and culture: conduct referrals, detentions and suspensions under the family handbook, restorative conversations, assemblies and culture expectations, and the phone calls home that follow.
- Daily operations: the master schedule, substitute and coverage plans, supervision rotations, arrival and dismissal, drills and crisis procedures, facilities issues and event logistics.
- Instruction and assessment: classroom walk-throughs, testing logistics, intervention scheduling, covering classes when a teacher is out, and support for curriculum leads.
- Teacher supervision and mentoring: first-line support for new teachers, observation and feedback where the principal or head delegates it, and coordination with aides and substitutes.
- Families and community: parent meetings and escalations, a seat in admissions tours at some schools, and report or data support for the head at others.
The week is long in every sector.
Principals reported working an average of 58.4 hours per week at traditional public schools, 58.0 at charter schools and 54.5 at private schools in 2020-21 (NCES) — and an assistant principal's evenings fill with the same concerts, games and family calls.
District assistant principals run this list with a central office behind them: payroll, curriculum and employment rules come from the district.
At a private or charter school, more of that machinery lives in the building, which is the difference the next section covers.
Pin down the three moving parts before you sign
How is the assistant principal role different at a charter or private school?
The duties travel with you; the ground rules change.
At a charter school, the state's charter law and the authorizer's agreement set the frame the school operates in, including what credentials its leaders need.
Those credential rules are state by state, not one national rule.
BLS states that most states require public school principals to be licensed as school administrators, and whether charter principals need a license depends on each state's charter law.
Private schools answer to a board, a diocese or a founder rather than a district office, and they set their own expectations for administrators.
BLS's guidance does not say private school principals need a license.
Credential ladders look different too.
In 2020-21, 28.2% of private school principals' highest degree was a bachelor's or less, versus 1.4% at traditional public schools, and 9.3% of private school principals held a doctorate or first-professional degree (NCES).
Instructional authority also concentrates differently.
NCES asked principals about their influence in 2020-21: 65.3% of private school principals and 55.8% of charter school principals said they had a major influence on establishing curriculum, versus 32.8% of traditional public school principals.
At a faith-based school, expect the school's religious life to sit inside the leadership job alongside its operations; the posting will show what that means in practice.
At a network school, expect the model — pacing, culture systems, data routines — to arrive from the network rather than from you.
Confirm credential rules where you will work
Assistant principal vs principal
The two roles sit on the same team with different accountability.
The principal or head of school owns the school: hiring and employment decisions, the budget, final discipline appeals, the board or authorizer relationship, and the results.
The assistant principal owns the slices the head delegates: a level of discipline, a stretch of the schedule, a set of grades to supervise, or a program to run.
Titles stack differently by sector.
A private or faith-based school may put a head of school at the top, add a division head for upper, middle or lower school, and place assistant principals or deans beneath them.
A charter school may call its top job a principal or an executive director, with assistant principals or deans of students and culture underneath.
For your career the difference is simple: the assistant principal role is where school leaders learn the whole job — discipline decisions, family relationships, staff management — before they are accountable for all of it.
When you compare postings, read the duty list rather than the title: an assistant principal posting at one school can cover more ground than a dean of students posting at another.
How do you become an assistant principal?
There is no single route into the job, but its duties — supervising teachers, handling families, holding a schedule together — draw on skills built while teaching.
Teach first, and teach well
Assistant principals supervise teachers, so build a classroom record you can point to: student growth, curriculum you wrote, families you handled, hard years you finished.Collect leadership evidence while teaching
Grade-level or department lead, scheduling or testing coordinator, mentoring a student teacher, coaching a sport or running a club — the resume of an assistant principal is a list of jobs done next to teaching.Add the coursework your target schools ask for
Graduate coursework in educational leadership strengthens a candidacy; whether you need it depends on the schools you target and, for district or charter jobs, the state's rules.Check the credential rules where you will work
BLS states that most states require public school principals to be licensed as school administrators; its guidance does not say private school principals need one, and charter requirements follow each state's charter law. Confirm with the state education agency or the authorizer.Apply where the duties match your evidence
Read postings for the duty split — discipline, operations, instruction — and apply where your record matches. Expect interview questions built around discipline scenarios, family conflicts and scheduling problems.
The NCES numbers show what the ladder looked like for private school principals in 2020-21: they had taught an average of 14.8 years before becoming principals, versus 11.9 years for public school principals.
31.0% of private school principals had taught 20 or more years first, and 14.4% had taught three or fewer.
Those are principal numbers, not an assistant-principal requirement — but they show the range of teaching experience people brought to the principal job.
Licensure and certification rules change
Find assistant principal jobs
Assistant principal openings at private and charter schools appear on school websites, diocese and network career pages, association job boards, and aggregators — and our assistant principal job listings collect them in one place.
BLS's published school-leadership figures are for principals, not assistant principals: its 2025 profile of elementary, middle and high school principals showed a median of $105,870 per year across all school types, with little or no change (0%) projected for 2025-35.
NCES's 2020-21 survey put average principal pay at $78,600 at private schools, $99,900 at charter schools and $106,500 at traditional public schools (nominal 2020-21 dollars).
By industry, BLS reported about 21% of U.S. principal jobs in 2025 at privately owned elementary and secondary schools, where the May 2025 median wage was $98,020, versus $107,860 at local-government schools.
None of those series isolates assistant principals, so read them as school-leadership context with the source and year attached.
Expect a long process: line up references and prepare stories about a discipline case you handled, a family conflict you de-escalated and a schedule you built.
Career information, not legal advice; licensure and hiring requirements change, so confirm them with your state education agency and, for charter schools, the authorizer.