If you don't want to talk to their boss the Principal of the school, go to the Principal's supervisor. And supposedly they have a "confidential" form folks can fill out to complain/provide feedback/praise, it should be on a school's website.

OP- This is true for all professions. There are some great people, good people and people bad at the job. These way to address this is with good leadership training programs and good evaluation systems.

Their standard way to address a referral is “conference with student”

Many, if not most APs have more face to face contact with staff, students, parents, and the community than Principals. What is the process that MCPS uses to evaluate them? Or is there one? I have come across some excellent ones and also some absolutely horrendous ones. The horrendous ones ruin the morale of the entire building. They do nothing to support teachers and instead spend their time micro managing them instead. When there’s an issue to be dealt with, they’re in their office “in a meeting” or they’ll delegate the problem to security, counseling, or the RTSE. Many of these terrible APs were also terrible teachers. Many of them are also BFFs with the Principal so staff doesn’t know who to turn to. There should be a way for staff to submit feedback on APs. That’s my point.