The Mellville School District in suburban St. Louis has 17 schools, and it's lost just as many principals in the past decade. Yet superintendent John Cary considers himself fortunate. As steward of a relatively prosperous district, he's been able to attract experienced administrators to fill the slots. Even for him, though, the task is becoming difficult.

"It alarms me that with what we have to offer, as far as pay and working conditions, we're seeing a dramatic dwindling in the number of candidates," Mr. Cary says. An opening for a principal at an elementary school used to attract 50 to 70 applicants five years ago, he says. Now the number is closer to 20. And often, only one or two of them are actually qualified for the job.

Administrators are bracing for the coming collision of two salient statistics: 40 percent of the nation's 93,200 principals are nearing retirement, according to the Department of Labor, and 42 percent of surveyed districts say they already have a shortage of qualified candidates for open principal positions.

Much attention is focused on a nationwide teacher shortage, but some experts say the education community can't afford to focus primarily on finding foot soldiers when it's also in sore need of generals.

"I've never been in a high-quality school and not seen a very good principal," says Gerald Tirozzi, executive director of the national association of secondary school principals. "You can't really transform a school one classroom at a time. You have to look at the whole school."

Amid the current teacher shortage, there are at least some stopgap measures: accelerated-certification programs and overseas recruitment. But when it comes to the principal problem, education leaders say they are looking across a chasm, with few signs of a bridge under construction.

The problem is showing up in urban, suburban, and rural districts alike, though city schools are particularly hard hit. Some suburban districts can lure urban principals by offering raises of $30,000 or more, thus exacerbating the problem downtown.

With retirements, the pool of veteran teachers is shrinking. And surveys show that they are responding with a resounding "thanks, but no thanks" when queried about taking over management of a school. The reasons could fill a blackboard.

A modern principal must be nearly as accomplished as a university president - while still tending to bus schedules. Increased concern with discipline and school security means principals must act as chiefs of police. Vocal and diverse community groups require them to be master politicians. The current reform climate pushes them to be visionary educators. Budget cuts force them to be fund-raisers. To top it off, the standardized-testing and accountability movement threatens to make principals seem as expendable as pro-football coaches after a losing season.

"There's no doubt the job has gotten harder in the last few years compared to when I started," says Dennis Garber, principal of Hoffman Estates High School in suburban Chicago and a past Illinois "principal of the year." He will retire at the end of this school year after serving 20 years as principal and another 12 as a teacher. "There are more outside pressure groups saying you ought to do it this way or you ought to do it that way. I still love my job, but it's really tough to face that day after day and maintain a positive outlook."

Principals are facing longer hours in their day job, plus more nights than ever when they have to return to school for sporting events, theater productions, or community meetings.

And then there's money. "Salary compression" has narrowed the gap between principal pay and teacher pay. The average principal's salary remains higher than the average teacher's, but the difference between new principals' salaries and those of veteran teachers has narrowed, and, in some cases, starting administrator salaries are even lower.

Both local districts and states are seeking solutions. Ohio opened a Principals Leadership Academy in 1999 to train would-be principals and veterans alike. Philadelphia launched the Leadership in Education Apprentice Design. New York has a score of programs to identify principal candidates among the teacher pool. And a dozen states have passed laws allowing alternative routes to principalship, primarily for businesspeople with managerial experience.

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