Today marks my last summer vacation—the end of my teaching career. I honestly don’t know if I would go back even though I could. But I’m not sure how worth it the pay and treatment a teacher gets would be later on in life.
The decision came down to a common motif I’m seeing in this generation of young adult workers: flexibility, remote work, pay, passion, burnout, identity, career, and work culture.
Aya and I moved out of SF during the pandemic. I kept trying to find a way back but it wasn’t affordable on a teacher salary. So I commuted from the East Bay for the last two years. Worked my ass off as a Department Head. Gave so much of myself to think something would be different.
For those of you who have known, I’m sure you’re probably overhearing it from me 😅 but for context:
This August, I was slated to be an Assistant Principal at my school site. Since Dec 2022, I had been working on job, university, and scholarship applications to help me get into USF’s M.A. in Organization & Leadership with an administrative services credential. USF admitted me, and the director of the O&L program wrote an appeasement letter on my behalf to allow me to work as an AP. I earned a few scholarships to help me with affording the program.
I completed multiple interviews and panels with the district. And I never got an official offer letter or contract.
I was expected to sign government policy-making forms, tax forms, and provide other information before an official offer letter, contract, and pay were even presented or clarified.
Since I applied for the AP position in January 2023. I was constantly reassured that I would receive proper pay. But without the credential, I know I wouldn’t be breaking the six-figure mark posted on the district’s salary schedule. It was never clarified if I would even be making more than my Department Head pay ($79k) which isn’t much, to begin with, or even allow me to live in SF.
I waited for 6 months and on June 6th I declared accepting a new job offer, I got an email from HR stating, “Avery is withdrawing his offer?” I’m lucky I wasn’t hit as hard as many SFUSD teachers have been with the missing pay over the last few years. But I don’t get how the district expects to retain educators and people who actually care to be there if they won’t treat them properly or with urgency.
I realized that the traditional way of teaching wasn’t working pre-pandemic and that post-pandemic something needed to change. Over the last two years, I’ve made a lot of changes to my teaching to better fit the needs of my students. A style of teaching fosters collaboration and empowers student agency. I had the pleasure of redesigning my classroom to help bolster this style of teaching I piloted. If you follow my blog @balasbasays or tuned into our podcast @winethursdaypodcast then maybe you’ve heard about how I create videos for my students to self-pace my curriculum.
In those 6 months, I had the honor of being a guest on the Modern Classrooms Project podcast to talk about how I implement reflection into my teaching and the MCP model. Two months after I recorded the podcast, MCP reached out to me about a job opportunity to help implement their instructional model at schools in Oakland. They were basically offering me a job for something I was piloting as almost a hobby or for self-interest and better benefits 🫠
So, today marks my first day (well now second day) as a Partnerships Manager for the Modern Classrooms Project. A non-profit organization that helps teachers/schools rethink education by implementing a blended learning, self-paced, and mastery-based instruction model. I’m excited to help teachers implement and find the same thrill, joy, and impact that this model has on students.
I know there’s a lot for me to learn, especially when it comes to recruitment and portfolio management. But I’ve come to realize that if life is like a book, then why would I want the next chapter to be the same as the last. My uncle told me that my passion hasn’t changed; it’s just the work I want to do has and will be even more impactful than the box I was kept in.
I’m obviously sad to leave the classroom so soon. I’ve learned and grown so much as an adult because of my career in teaching. But I definitely burned myself out with how much of myself I was giving. I embarked on a career that asks so much of an individual that I started seeing the signs of losing sight of who I was. And I want to have a career that allows me to do both.
I hope to see where life takes me from here and pushes me to do more than just turn my hobbies into something that allows me more time for work.
Although I won’t have my own classroom anymore, I’m excited to help others experience the same success I had. I hope to help make other teachers’ lives sustainable and improve the quality of learning and college readiness in schools.
Epilogue:
I learned a lot in my five years of teaching. I think more than I could have asked for. I’m really fortunate for all the opportunities, mentorship, and experience I gained from ALHS and SFUSD. Back when I was choosing between job offers, I wasn’t sure which one was right for me. My original goal was to teach back at my alma mater, but college changed my perspective on education and who I should be serving. For personal reasons too, I wasn’t ready to leave San Francisco and I’m glad I stuck to that feeling. My time with SFUSD launched me into a large network of incredible educators. Folks who I worked under bolstered my curriculum design, transformed my thinking, and provided me leadership qualities I didn’t know I was looking for. Despite the pandemic hitting, a lot of the projects I embarked on prepared me to lead my department. Although I have written a lot about my struggles as a department head, it has shaped me into a leader I never realized I was. Maybe in another blog, I’ll talk about my short-lived experience in my second graduate program.
If not for these past five years, I would not have been pushed to new heights to look for something more. And find something that I think is powerful enough to revolutionize or change education as it stands.
Even though my career as a teacher has ended, I feel more empowered to speak out about my time as a young educator. And hopefully, now I have more time to actually blog and maintain these shared resources.
I completed my first/second day of work. It was thrilling and bizarre at the same time. I worked remotely before, but as a teacher, it still demands a lot of your time. The majority of my time today was not as demanding. I found myself with a lot of wonderings of what to do with this time. Of course, it’s just day 1 and there’s clearly a lot coming my way in the next few weeks.
But today gave a really great preview into the work cut out for me. I met my director, Michael, who is great and supportive right from the jump. I feel like the mentors I’ve had in my life have translated and almost reincarnated into different people. Just like my teaching, they’re the teacher I never had. Michael expressed he didn’t want to throw me into the deep end right away, but I’m glad I said yes and participated in some of the meetings he brought up today. I can see that there’s more to just the Oakland partnerships. If anything, these projects on the West Coast will help facilitate the foundation for an Oakland partnership.
Well, I got a lot of work cut out for me and lots of new digital tools to learn. I look forward to actually blogging more or returning to make content again. See you in the next one!
Balasbas Says 