A Texas Principal Leads School Turnaround Through Teacher Support

When Texas Principal Tristan Love joined Bloomington Middle School in the 2025-2026 school year, he brought experience turning around two Houston Independent School District campuses and a commitment to creating a safe school environment where students enjoy learning. As both a school principal and Bloomington ISD’s executive director of administration, he supports teachers at his school and principals across the district.

Through the district’s partnership with the NIET, Principal Love strengthens instructional systems that help educators improve their practice. The instructional leadership team guides this work, providing collaborative professional learning and classroom observations and feedback for teachers. During his first year, Bloomington ISD improved 14 points, moving from an F to a D accountability rating, while Bloomington Middle School gained five points and moved from a D to a C.

Now in his second year at Bloomington Middle School, Principal Love shares how instructional leadership structures build teacher capacity and contribute to student achievement.

How have observation and feedback strengthened teachers and supported instructional improvement?

Our observation and feedback work has evolved into coaching cycles where teachers and I identify a specific area for growth, work through it together, reflect on the impact, and adjust. I am also willing to get out of the principal's office and teach alongside teachers when that is what they need, because instructional leadership cannot just be something we talk about—it has to be something we are willing to do together. The goal is to build teacher capacity and confidence so that continuous improvement becomes part of who we are.

What do you think contributed to the district’s 14-point gain and Bloomington Middle School’s five-point gain, and what changes have you seen in your school that are driving stronger outcomes for students?

The district's 14-point gain is connected to a collective focus on student growth, and that same focus has driven our work at Bloomington Middle School. I believe that if we are asking students and teachers to give us a year's worth of effort, we should expect to see a year's worth of academic growth. That intentionality helped Bloomington Middle School move from “Improvement Required” to meeting standards in accountability, while also producing a five-point gain at the campus.

The numbers matter, but I am most proud of what is behind them: teachers taking greater ownership of student outcomes, stronger instructional conversations, more consistent systems, targeted intervention, and students beginning to see themselves as capable learners.

In your role as a district executive director, you support other principals. As a principal yourself, why is that support critical?

I think principals need someone who understands both the responsibility and the reality of the job. As an Executive Director of Administration, I support principals across the district, but as a principal myself, I am living the work alongside them—making decisions, solving problems, supporting teachers, responding to students and families, and trying to move a school forward every day. That perspective allows me to support principals without taking their leadership away from them; I want to help them slow down, ask better questions, examine the evidence, and identify the next right step.

Whether we are working through an instructional challenge, a student issue, or a difficult leadership decision, my goal is for the principal to leave the conversation more confident and more equipped than when they came in. Supporting principals is ultimately about multiplying leadership across the district so that more students benefit from strong leaders.