For many teachers, the hardest part of the job is having to deal with the administration, who only seem to make teaching harder.

What would you do if you had a principal who was always trying to get you in trouble and make your job more difficult?

That is what the teacher in this story was dealing with, so she finally decided to quit, but gave no notice, so the school was in chaos until they could find a replacement.

Check it out.

Find a new plan? Find a new teacher.

I (39f) am a certified teacher with a “Master” level recognition from my state.

This equates to basically being a good teacher that goes above and beyond, but also comes with perks including a pretty nice yearly bonus and getting to bypass certain paperwork requirements (this is important).

Good teachers are invaluable.

I worked for a fairly large (and relatively decent) charter school system for about 10 years.

I taught World Geography and World Cultures and was pretty well liked by my students, mostly because I gave as good as I got, but also focused on having a fun and interesting class rather than meeting metrics.

At the district level, they loved me because I wrote a lot of my own curriculum and exceeded metrics and they placed me in multiple district positions including curriculum writing, training, and subject leadership. (All of which came with extra pay.)

However, my principal hated me.

He was deeply misogynist, even more deeply incompetent, and did not know how to deal with someone like me who was unwilling to put up with either.

I have a business background and learned how to write professional letters in truly satisfying ways.

Someone like this is very valuable.

During my time working there, I became the person who would convey staff complaints about many things including things like communication, safety, salary, non-contract demands, etc.

We had a lot of issues, especially since our state makes it pretty hard to unionize and they were constantly trying to get away with illegal stuff.

Obviously, this made my principal and some of the other admins hate me, but they couldn’t discipline me since I always wrote with professional language, cited educational codes, and included evidence (in addition, you know, to not actually doing anything wrong outside of calling them on their bad behavior.)

Furthermore, my students did well and both they and parents (generally) liked me.

Add to it that district liked me, and I was basically an annoyance they could do nothing about, including refusing to renew my contract.

That is until the end of the 2021-2022 school year.

From bad to worse.

At this point, we were told that the principal was leaving, but was being replaced by one of the other admins who had a bad reputation through the district.

I decided to give them a chance though and hoped that some of the illegal and sexist stuff would stop (spoiler, it didn’t).

This announcement was then followed by them telling me that they were moving my grade levels from 6th grade to 9th grade on level and 10th grade AP.

This would mean a massive change in grade, having to learn two new curriculums, and having to become AP certified.

Plus, all of those district positions?

Yeah they were tied to my grade level (which is why they couldn’t move me before) so I would effectively be losing about $6k a year.

Their needs shouldn’t cost her money.

They explained that this had to happen because they needed to use my ability to bypass paperwork that came with being a master level teacher (for reasons related to post-Covid education).

When my district level contacts found out, they were upset but couldn’t do anything because it was a valid change and saved the district money with the bypass.

I decided to bite the bullet and just do it.

Partially because it meant teaching students I’d had before (which is a huge help) and because well…I live in a state that is actively passing laws to prevent history teachers like me from existing and I didn’t want to fight that fight at a public ISD.

So fall 2022 rolls around and I go full force into it.

Get a good relationship with my students and try to get along with the new admins.

Except, they basically immediately tried to get me to commit fraud and, as I found out, a lot of the communication being sent by my old principal was actually written by the new one.

But I love my students.

Sigh.

The inciting incident that finally caused me to snap actually didn’t have to do with teaching. Instead, it was my child.

At the time, they were taking in person classes at the community college about 10 minutes away from my campus and they only had a driving permit (my city doesn’t do public transit).

This seems very reasonable.

I asked one of the admins if it would be okay if they came to school with me each morning, hung out for an hour, and then I would take them to campus during my off period.

They said it was okay, especially as my child has actually been a volunteer on campus for many years.

Three weeks into this arrangement, I get an email that my child is being detained in the front lobby and that I needed to take them home.

The reason?

They were quietly doing their homework in the teachers lounge and professor Karen didn’t like that.

I told them that they could let me wait 20 minutes to take my child when the campus opened or get a substitute for the day.

They told me to wait and to check my child in appropriately next time.

This principal is way out of line.

Two days later, I get called into the principal’s office to for a formal meeting.

When I get there, the entire admin team is waiting and there are even papers ready for me to sign.

To say they looked smug at finally being able to write me up is an understatement.

And the reason? I brought my child onto campus.

At first, I was genuinely confused because staff regularly brought their children to campus, especially since most of our children went to different schools that didn’t have the same holiday schedule.

It had never been a problem.

But now it was.

That is just ridiculous.

So I was going to need to sign a written reprimand for not following a procedure that hadn’t even been put into place yet.

But that wasn’t even the stupidest part.

See, the principal had decided that I was bringing my child to campus all on my own.

When I finally interrupted them and pointed to the admin I had gotten permission from, the principal looked startled.

They had never even communicated and I was getting disciplined for something I had permission to do, which the admin confirmed during the meeting.

Suddenly, I was being told nevermind about the write up, but that I needed to “find a new plan” for my child’s getting to school.

As I left, I made a comment about maybe needing to find a new job instead, which gave them a moment of panic.

That is great that they could make it work financially.

Being a responsible adult, I went home to discuss it with my husband and we both agreed that it was time for me to go.

Between the yearly bonus and the time worked- but-as-yet-paid (due to the way teacher salaries work), I could quit and still get close to $30k, enough to give me time to find another job.

My husband is amazing and, like myself, is pretty petty so we both decided to wait.

Two weeks from the date in question, we were having a tutorial weekend on campus.

This meant that I could enter without anybody knowing unless they checked the cameras.

So, that weekend, while the building was opened, my husband and I emptied my classroom.

(And if you’ve been a teacher, you can appreciate the amount of crap I had accumulated over 10 years.)

I had taken some less obvious things home during those weeks, but my classroom went from the most postered TV set looking room to a wasteland in an hour.

Many of the things that made the room usable were mine too so that was more fun.

That worked out well.

More hilarious, the following Monday was a campus training day so, I went and got paid one more day to mess around with my coworkers (a couple of whom knew the plan and were excited).

On Tuesday morning, at 8am, I emailed in my resignation as well as a still professional list of grievances including many specific criticisms of the admin and an outright statement of many of the illegal things they were doing.

And then I went back to sleep.

I can imagine it was chaos for the day.

From what my colleagues told me, it was an absolute mess.

It took them 30 minutes to realize that my first period class didn’t have a teacher.

By that time, the other members of my department, whom I had kindly cc’d on the email had covertly sent it to all the other teachers on campus.

By the end of the day, I heard that one of my coworkers had read it to a class of students that knew me and that several parents had read it too.

I had given my colleagues permission to give one of my emails to my students (because I did love them) and by the end of the day, my inbox was filled with some heart warming notes and promises to carry my legend forward.

(I kept in contact with several students until they got a new teacher so they didn’t fail their AP exams.)

Finding a good teacher is hard.

It took the school 3 months to find a replacement.

Part of this was because they had to find someone with the same qualifications (that paperwork bypass) but couldn’t and eventually just had to hire the new teacher and an additional tutor.

Outside of that, some of my information is inconsistent.

I was told that there were parent complaints and questions about if what I had said was true.

One of the other teachers decided to carry on my torch and started pushing back on bad policies in my place.

And, finally, since I also just happened to send the email to the superintendent, the new principal was under a lot of scrutiny for some of the illegal and against district policies they had started enacting and, strangely, that principal was asked to leave the campus at the end of that year.

Good, I hope the new principal can turn things around.

(The new principal is actually someone I worked with before and is apparently doing great things for the campus so that’s good.)

I still occasionally get emails telling me that the students miss me and I plan to go visit the campus soon to give other teachers some of my supplies (I decided to go to wfh).

But for the most part, things have quieted down now.

Which is what is best for the students in the end.

Teachers are often underpaid and unappreciated, especially by the administration.

They deserve more respect.

Let’s see what the people in the comments say about it.

This commenter says she should have quit sooner.

Unions can be very helpful.

I think a lot of people feel this way.

This person doesn’t think it makes sense.

Sadly, this is very true.

Teachers are so unappreciated, especially by the administration, who should value them the most.

They deserve respect and support, but rarely get it.

Perhaps this is why so many teachers quit each year.

If you liked that post, check out this post about a woman who tracked down a contractor who tried to vanish without a trace.