For the last few years I have wanted to step out of the classroom. But then I landed a pretty great position. I fell in love with the schools philosophy and it doesn’t hurt that the workload is not bad and the pay is pretty high compared to other schools in the area. I am GLC for my grade level so I understand that I will usually always have the hardest caseload and I’m fine with that, but this year I reached my breaking point. Last year there was an associate teacher who was very mean to her lead teacher. That lead teacher ended up getting fired and my associate Director pretty much asked me for a favor. She asked myself and my then associate teacher if we would be willing to separate (we were such an amazing team and I really enjoyed working with her). She asked us this because she was nervous about what the teaching dynamic would be if that bully of an associate teacher was paired with a new lead. We said fine and I have regretted it every day. It’s clear to me now that this lady wants to be lead and is unhappy with her associate position. She has zero respect for me and will talk over me, completely change routines and transitions when I am out sick and ignore me when I ask her to do specific things. She is very pushy at times and I don’t even feel comfortable or relaxed in my own classroom. I have zero issues with advocating for myself and so I sat down with my associate Director and my Director. I was very blunt about my feelings and said I did not want to work with her next year. I reminded them that this is not a one time occurrence and I’m not the only person she has treated this way, they absolutely did not care. It is so incredibly important to know and understand that the cornerstone of my school’s philosophy is mental health. I told them that I am burning out and they did absolutely nothing to support or help me. So I have to make a choice. I want to quit, but at the same time it bothers me that this bully is allowed to treat people this way. The way my admin explains it, they want to support her with learning how to grow and be a better teacher. They said they thought she could learn a lot from me. I let them know that I do try to teach her things and she continues to do what she wants but they insisted that she has learned a lot for me so far 🙄 like excuse me, do not break me down just so you can build somebody up. Not at the expense of MY mental health. But at the same time this really is a good job, plus I don’t want that bully to win and go on to mistreat yet another lead. Very conflicted.