what I will say to my principal

Things I'm going to say to my principal tomorrow when I quit my job:

*update, the things I actually said are bolded*

• Two years into teaching, I regretted joining the profession. I went back to school and got a masters in curriculum design. Covid hit while I was getting my masters. It bought me time in the classroom. It is now about two years out of Covid, this is year six of teaching. And I am regretting joining the profession. 
• When I thought about teaching chemistry, I didn't realize that  planning to teach chemistry and teaching chemistry was only about 10% of  what I actually got to do. The other 90% is spent dealing with discipline, testing, new initiatives, new programs, duty stations, social-emotional learning, registration, professional development, IEP meetings, 504 meetings, course team meetings, district meetings, certification meetings, on-boarding the new person for the fifth year in a row, etc. etc. 
• I never considered the fact that most of the students didn't want to be there. 
• I will not be teaching at another school, within our public district.
• Are there jobs for me, at my current school, not within the classroom? 
• I was offered a position at a private school to build their chemistry curriculum. I may teach some classes, but I would have extra planning periods and be hired with the intention of redesigning the chemistry curriculum.

*update: the response from my principal was "hate to see you go, but let me know if you need anything, and no I don't have anything at the school for you."

 Things I'm NOT going to say to my principal tomorrow when I quit:

• I love designing curriculum and making chemistry meaningful. I get excited to teach the class. Then the bell rings and seventeen kids are tardy. Two teachers interrupt looking for updates on something that I don't know about. Three testing passes get sent for who even knows what test. I get a notification that I didn't submit an ISS assignment that was posted at 4pm the day before and it is currently 7am - so when was I supposed to do that? I get into a power struggle with a student cause they won't stop live streaming during class. An angry teacher yells at me because the students haven't been sent down with those three testing passes yet. I have to beg the students to be quiet so I can explain the activity. They scroll on their phones and live stream instead of doing the cool, new activity. Or at least I thought it was cool. Guess I was wrong. 
• I am tired of spending more time on the kids who don't want to be in the classroom than the ones who do. 
• I am tired of testing. ACCESS testing. iReady testing. District common assessments. District final exams. Performance Finals. PSAT. SAT. Writing finals. Curriculum specific quizzes and tests. I am so damn tired of testing. 
• I never deliberately pursued education, I just defaulted to teaching because I was good at it and there was job security. I was worried about being a chemist. I knew I could teach.
• The technology use is completely unmanaged. I am not more interesting than TikTok and whatever other social media they are using. Phones were already out of control, and then you gave them all a chromebook without any way for teachers to regulate the use, and without any school policy on technology. I cannot convince students to get off their phones and participate, not even when I make our entire classroom into an escape room with literal locks and keys. I am not more interesting than whatever is on their phone and computer. 

These things have been an issue for a long time. In mid January all teachers fill out an intent form, that states what their intentions for the next year. I filled mine out and said I intended to work the next school year. I turned it in to my principal's secretary. The next Monday I went to my department head and told her that the following year would be my last. She thought I was coming to ask her about how I could move up to a higher position, such as department head or assistant principal. Tuesday I looked up alternate jobs for me, that were still in the school system. I printed out another college program of study. Friday I went home and made a resume and scrolled through job openings. The following Monday I went back to my department head and told her I didn't think next year would work for me. I also went to my assistant principal and told her the same. I scheduled a meeting with the school principal and told him the same thing. Two weeks later I had submitted four job applications. Two weeks later I started going on interviews. I submitted my letter of separation before getting a new job; there was no way I could continue to teach. All of the bulleted reasons of why I am leaving education have been going on for a while. Here is why I think I suddenly broke this semester. 

• I was given some honors/gifted classes. The idea being that it could be the breath of fresh air I needed to remain a teacher. It backfired. My biggest discipline concern in the H/G class was occasional plagiarism and I made a seating chart once. That was it. Meanwhile my lower level class is screaming, running around, completely ignoring me, skipping class, blatantly cheating, hungover or high, fighting, and incessantly disruptive. I have asked people for support on classroom management and the first people to speak up are those who teach only H/G, pathway, or AP classes. I do not need the words of wisdom when the sit on a pedestal and have a perspective that is clouded by their privilege. 
• I was called over break to ask I was willing to teach extended day because our class sizes were so large, that we needed another section and there was no one to teach it. After expressing that I was unwilling to work extended day, I was asked to inquire about the chemistry and find someone who was. I was unwilling to do that as well. Not surprisingly, no one was willing to work an extra shift everyday. Their solution was to take a teacher who already had two different preps, and tell them they had to teach a third. Not surprising, that teacher is furious.
• My second year of teaching, I had a large class with several people who were truly not good people at that stage of their life. I was miserable in that class and I had no control over them and no support. I cried over that class more than once. My coteacher, despite having more experience, was also clueless on how to handle them. It was that year when I decided to continue my education so that I could look for other jobs. One of my classes this year reminds me of that class. I am more experienced now, they don't make me cry, and for the most part I keep the class moving. But this time, I am tired. I am tired of writing students' names on the whiteboard and giving them tally marks for all their egregious behaviors, and writing a referral when they get to three tallies. I am tired of seniors asking me if I will bump them to an A, when they aren't even passing. I am tired of debating with students about whether I should mark them tardy if they walk into our class tardy. I am tired of telling them that a seating chart is not a suggestion. I am tired of yelling to be heard. 
• The fire alarm went off during school hours. I did not have a class. A teacher ran up to me and asked if it was a drill, because they had a student in a wheelchair, who couldn't take the elevator, because it would be shut down. No one knew where the sling was. While trying to find a sling, I discovered the smoke billowing out of a bathroom (someone had lit the toilet paper on fire) and ascertained that it was, in fact, not a drill. We never found a sling but I did find a strong person who helped carry the student/wheel chair down three floors of stairs (but we have large levels, so really it was six flights of stairs). I'm not really sure why, but this was a big deal for me. We had a drill in that same class the week before - why did the teacher not know the procedures? The teacher was also the longest standing member of the Safety Committee and school - how did they not know what to do? Why did no one know where the sling was? I asked assistant principals. Why is there not one in every classroom that the student has? Something?!?!?! What if the fire had been closer to where the student was? What if I didn't find the strong person? I would have needed to piggy-back the student down the stairs, because I could not carry the whole load. I was sick to my stomach and didn't sleep that night. It should not have bothered me as much as it did. The fire was out quickly and did not spread. There were a handful of people who stayed behind to ensure that the student was evacuated safely. I wasn't alone. But I was making decisions I wasn't equipped to make. And the student; he lost all since of autonomy. We stood around talking about him and our plan as if he wasn't right there. We didn't even have time for introductions when they picked him up and carried him down the stairs. It really bothered me. 
• I get a message from an assistant principal that says (and I quote): "*Student Name* can come work with you during 4th block today. I think she has a few tests to make up for you. She can do it 4th block or at home. Y'all decide what is best for her." I replied with, "No, she can't." It was about noon, the day before final exams. I had to grade performance finals and prep for district finals during fourth. The final exams were at 7am the next morning and it was halfway through the workday. Grades have to be posted right after exams. When was I going to grade that missing work? Why this assistant principal think it is okay to tell me I will do in my planning periods, what my class policies are, and what a student can or can not do in my planning periods?? There are school-wide policies for teachers and students, and I was following those. Still taking missing work that has to be graded by the teacher, the day before the final exam is absurd. I was showing grace to the students: all missing work, even assignments from the first week of school, could be submitted for full credit until the Friday before finals. That was the grace period for the students. Grace for me was that I was only going to work extra on the weekend to grade all their missing, not the day before exams. 

UPDATE 6/30/2023

I have thought more about this and started my new job. Why did I leave education?

• Early on in education, I was told that when working in education, I would need to "pick my battles." And though I would have to do that in order to make education sustainable, there is no world in which I look at a student making a inappropriate choice in my classroom and ignore that behavior. I really believe that letting bad behavior slide because it isn't the chosen battle is why we have so much violence, tardies and absences, belligerent outbursts, cheating, drug use, smoking/vaping, missing work/failing classes - I could go on, but you get the point. If that behavior is not one admin's or teacher's "battle" then the behavior is allowed to continue, students are then offended when a different admin or teacher addresses it, and more students follow in suit with delinquent behavior, because other people are not getting in trouble for it. 
• I think the phrase "pick your battles" is perfectly appropriate when raising children. Debating as to whether a toddler needs to wear real shoes to town or if they can wear their house slippers like they want, might not be a battle that the parent wants to fight. Does it really matter or not?
• At the high school level, with almost 1400 students, we aren't debating the weather to dress ratio or the cookie before lunch argument. We are talking about enforcing policies that were determined by stakeholder to be delinquent behavior. And if the policies need updating, we update them. Every new stakeholder has been giving a copy of these policies. These policies keep our school safe and secure. We don't pick and choose which of these to follow. Every policy is a battle worth fighting, by every admin and teacher. Stop telling me to pick my battles because it isn't worth the time and effort.

Stop telling me to stop addressing bad behaviors.