Why I Left

It was easier for me to build a school from scratch. . . than stay at my teaching job. What a wild statement! As a public school teacher for many years, I tried to “be the change” from within, at the cost of myself and my family. I worked 12 hour days and was a top-ranked and paid teacher whose students, within 7 months of taking my last position, outperformed teachers who had been doing it for years. I was working at a school that used to be in the bottom 5% of schools in TN - so this was not a privileged location, yet we achieved Level 5 TVAAS ranking my first year. This means my students outperformed the state standard by the highest degree possible.

I was effective, well-paid, and tried to make learning fun while teaching cognitive skills > content memorization. I was many students “favorite teacher.” No seriously - it was a daily occurrence that my past students would try and sneak into my classroom. On the last day of school, students begged their other teachers to let them come to my class to help me pack. Things looked great on paper, but when I stepped back to look at the system, I realized three things:

1. Everything my school did and trained me on was for the purpose of producing better test results - not better thinkers.

2. My work life was not sustainable and it was deeply costing me.

3. There were too many students in a classroom for one teacher to effectively meet every need. Students were getting passed along, looked over, or ignored.

There was a lot that my school did right, but it wasn’t enough. I needed more prep time. I needed tedious tasks taken off my plate. I wanted to focus on what was most beneficial for my students, rather than the administrative “have to do” tasks to check off for compliance. I love teaching, but I was growing to hate the job.

So here we are. I left the system to start it over; to do it better; to empower students’ curiosity, rather than diminish it; to keep students’ natural love for learning; to create a safe space where kids can still be kids and teachers get to love teaching.

If this is the community you are looking for - let’s create it together, because if not us, then who?