Kerri-Ann Pitts | April 2026

Dear EdFuel Community,

A year ago, I wrote what became one of the most vulnerable reflections of my career —  leading through a reduction in force and what it required of me as a people-centered leader. I wasn’t sure how it would land. But the response told me something important: people needed to hear it. Not because my story was unique, but because it wasn’t. Leaders across our sector — in schools, networks, nonprofits, and beyond — were quietly navigating the same reality and feeling alone in it.

A year later, that disruption hasn’t ended. It has evolved.

The landscape has only gotten more complex. Funding uncertainty across federal, state, and philanthropic sources continues to ripple across the education and nonprofit sectors, and organizations that once felt stable are making difficult decisions about how to sustain their work with fewer resources. Additionally, according to Education Week’s 2026 State of Teaching report, job satisfaction among teachers has declined, with nearly half saying they expect to eventually leave the profession. 

This isn’t just a teacher challenge. It’s a sector-wide staffing challenge— one that touches every level of every organization, including ours.

In the middle of all this, one phrase keeps coming up in nearly every conversation I have with leaders: strategic staffing. It’s become the go-to response to the pressures we’re facing. But here’s what I’ve realized — we’re not all talking about the same thing.

When We Say “Strategic Staffing,” What Do We Actually Mean?
From where I sit, I see three distinct framings playing out across the sector right now:

• Right-sizing and reducing: making hard cuts based on budget realities
• Team teaching and restructuring: rethinking how roles and teams are organized to better serve students and missions 
• Expanding and adding roles: growing strategically through new or redesigned positions

All three of these are happening right now. Sometimes within the same organization. If you’ve found yourself in more than one of these categories in the span of a single budget cycle, you’re not alone. We have as well.

What We’ve Learned at EdFuel
Our reduction in force was one of the hardest decisions I’ve had to make as a leader. It was also necessary to sustain our long-term impact. That clarity didn’t make it easier to execute, but it made it possible to lead through it with integrity.

And on the other side of that decision, something else happened: we grew. Last year, EdFuel was awarded a U.S. Department of Education grant that is expanding our reach and our work. But even in a season of growth, I’ve had to remind myself, and my team, of a few things that I think are worth sharing.

• Trust your instincts. Whether you’re scaling up or scaling back, not every moment requires you to reinvent the wheel. Sometimes the most strategic move is to build on what you already know works — and let go of what doesn’t. We didn’t need to create an entirely new model to do this work well. We needed to trust the one we had and refine it.

• Remember that strategy requires tradeoffs, not just alignment. Whether you’re adding roles or reducing them, the discipline is the same: being clear about what you’re choosing and not choosing to do. It also means investing in the people who are on your team right now. One of the most important staffing decisions a leader can make isn’t about headcount — it’s about giving people the clarity, authority, and support to own the work.

• Build financial sustainability into your growth, not around a single funding source. Whether your organization runs on grants, contracts, or a mix of funding sources, the question is the same: can we sustain this if one of those sources shifts? That question matters just as much when you’re growing as when you’re tightening. The organizations that weather disruption aren’t always the ones with the most resources — they’re the ones who plan for what happens when conditions change.

The Bigger Picture
Beyond internal staffing decisions, we’re also watching a broader trend across the education sector: mergers, acquisitions, and consolidations. Schools are merging, including a proposed merger of districts in Catawba County, NC, to strengthen their financial footing. Networks are consolidating governance and operations to create more stability. And more broadly, mission-driven organizations are exploring mergers and acquisitions as a path to stability — combining resources, talent, and infrastructure to do together what’s becoming harder to sustain alone.

These moves aren’t just structural — they come with real complexity around talent, roles, and organizational design. Navigating them well requires intentional, equity-centered decisions. We share more on this in the newsletter below, including how EdFuel can support organizations navigating these transitions.

A Charge for the Leaders Reading This
Here’s what I want to leave you with: strategic staffing is not a one-time decision. It’s a discipline. It’s the daily practice of asking: do we have the right people in the right roles, with the right support, doing work that is sustainable and mission-aligned?

Whether you’re right-sizing, restructuring, or expanding, I’d encourage you to hold these questions close:

• Are we making staffing decisions reactively, or are we grounding them in a long-term vision for the organization and the communities we serve?
• Are we building financial sustainability into our strategy — not just riding the wave of a current funding source?
• Are we trusting and investing in the people already on our teams, or are we defaulting to adding capacity before we’ve fully leveraged the people and technology we have?

The students and communities we serve deserve organizations that are built to last — not just built to respond. That means the way we staff, grow, and lead through the new normal all have to be intentional.

If you’re navigating any of this right now — a reduction, a restructure, a merger, a growth moment that feels exciting and terrifying at the same time — I see you. We are walking this road alongside you. And if we can be a thought partner, please don’t hesitate to reach out by replying to this email or sending a note directly to me at kpitts@edfuel.org.

All my best,
Kerri-Ann Pitts

Sources cited: Education Week, State of Teaching 2026