'The Work Is Therapy': Principals Help Each Other Recover From School Shootings

The Principal Recovery Network is a club that no school leader wants to join. Yet when its members meet, they greet and joke with each other like family.

“If people saw us together, and if they knew why we gather, they’d think there’s something wrong with us,” quipped Andy McGill, the assistant principal at the rural West Liberty-Salem High School in West Liberty, Ohio.

In 2019, McGill came together with 21 other educators to form the PRN, a support and advocacy group for current and former school leaders who’ve survived and led their schools through the aftermath of a violent incident like a shooting.

Here, some of those school leaders discuss their experiences and their work as part of the PRN.