Month 37 (April 14, 2025-May 14, 2025)

 This is the beginning of my exit strategy from public education. Let me preface this with a little background. For the last 15 years, I have been in public education. During that time I've run the gamut of roles: home visitor, preschool, substitute, teaching assistant, speech/language implementor, early childhood special education, and for the last 6 years--special education. 

After a harsh discussion about my misdeeds from my principal, I felt like utter crap. They were right. Which is always the worst conversation. If you aren't aware of a mistake, at least you feel a little redemption. Here there wasn't any. They had me dead to rights with my misdeeds. I knew they were there, but I'd turned a blind eye to it. A combination of anxiety and lack of attention to detail were totally the culprit. 

Here we have our side quest portion of the story::

Now like most educators, I've been on anti-anxiety medication for years. The last few months, it hasn't been working as effectively. It started with waking up in the middle of the night, heart racing, over something school related. The heart racing, feeling like my stomach is dropping out of my butt for no reason that I experienced before starting meds has been steadily increasing. 

In addition, I have complex partial epilepsy. Throughout the years my memory has been degrading, However at the beginning of this school year, I had 2 seizures AT SCHOOL when I had been seizure free for years. My medication was increased twice (the first time it happened in 15 years). 

Back to the main storyline::

Unable to sleep, eat, think, anxiety riddled my weekend. The next day, I started looking at changing positions- maybe even districts. Next, I thought about what it would be like to work outside of in-person school. I thought, 'I can do online teaching, hell I did during COVID when we didn't know how any of that worked'. Then I started exploring crazy alternatives--like recording audiobooks or doing narrations. For the love of God, I even opened an account where you can sell used underwear! The only way I was able to sleep that night was thinking about making a change. To add to the injury, a co-worker was the victim of budget cuts. Their role was going to be 'reassigned', meaning that the workload they had will likely be dispersed to others. 

Doing the math, which I can do because my state says I can, my take home pay would be the same for working minimum wage. The state where I live is the 45th in average teacher salary. My love for the profession is leaving. Combine that with not being paid enough to deal with all the extra burdens that come with the job. It equals burn out. 

After talking with my dear husband, we worked out an exit strategy. Our son graduates in 3 years. The plan is that if I still feel like this by his graduation, I'm out. Deuces. Gone. We have worked out the logistics to be mostly debt free by then. My husband carries our insurance and makes almost 3 times what I do, with a high school education. 

So, 37 months from today (more or less a few days), my goal is to leave education.