Can I ask a follow up question for th HS teachers? My kids often say they spent a class period working independently or in small groups. I had assumed teachers used that time for grading. Is that incorrect?

I am thinking about this for a late career switch. My brother did it in his 50s and is now retiring at 67; he really loved it. My own kids are mostly grown and I spend much of the day working with AHs currently so I feel lol my tolerance is probably high. Plus I am super familiar with the pointless bureaucracy that is our public school system.I have spent a lot of time volunteering with kids and teens in scouts and I really love spending time with them. They are such a hoot. I miss it now that my kids are aging out of all those activities. I also have kids with SN and spent a lot of the last two decades reading books and studies about different learning styles.

I think the early mornings and the loss of flexibility schedule would be really hard though.

Ditto the coming home completely spent, and starting at the beginning salary no matter your past experience.

Coming from a creative office environment to teaching, I’m blown away by the number of people who can’t write a professional sounding email to save their lives, and those who reply all to 250 people. The people who lack the work-skills like, such as making a user friendly spreadsheet/ document and basic clear communication. I’ve been here over 10 years and it still bugs me. I have some very smart coworkers who are good at what they do, but have absolutely no patience for those who don’t.

Especially coming from project management, I’m assuming you are used to knowing how to organize and communicate information efficiently- and teaching will be…different.

OP, I’m going to say this as respectfully as I can:

Please take the comments from teachers as a more accurate representation of the job than other DCUM posters. There’s a trend on this site to misrepresent teaching (easy hours, paid summers, flexible).

The teachers on this site, from my perspective, have been very honest and open about what we are experiencing. If you apply, you’ll find a ton of support to help you through the tough first years… kind of like how I see this as a very supportive thread so far.

Good luck to you!

Anonymous wrote:If money truly doesn’t matter, look into working as a kindergarten assistant or special education assistant. It’s very hard work but truly 8 to 4. Some districts pay better than others. I make a little over 50,000 a year in Arlington.

This may be a good place to start. Look into paraeducator jobs or even substitute teaching while your kids are young. And then transition to full time teaching in a few years when your kids are a little bit older. Teaching is very intense and if you have high standards for yourself, it means a lot of hours. Prepare for many many hours outside of the school day - especially the first few years. Some teachers have it easier but it is hard to control for that.

If salary isn’t an issue, I say try it.

A lawyer I practiced with quit litigation and became a high school English teacher. He has been teaching for years now, and loves it.

Yeah, definitely. Easy hours and lots of days off.

If money truly doesn’t matter, look into working as a kindergarten assistant or special education assistant. It’s very hard work but truly 8 to 4. Some districts pay better than others. I make a little over 50,000 a year in Arlington.

Anonymous wrote:Teacher with 25 years of experience here.

I won’t discourage you, but go in prepared. The days are exhausting. You’ll come home mentally and physically drained, and you’ll still have 2-3 hours of work to do in order to be prepared for the next day.

Many of us will tell you the first couple years are brutal. It’s extra observations under the guise of “support” and a lot of on-your-feet learning to do. Things will go wrong and you’ll need to recover quickly.

If you go in expecting those conditions and you lean on your colleagues, you can get to a great point. It never gets easier, but you learn to manage the chaos better.

Very accurate. I’m year 6 but the first 3 years were brutal. It’s still hard and I work 6 days a week trying to keep up with everything

OP here - Thank you for all the candid feedback, suggestions and personal experiences - there’s a lot to think about. And to all teachers - thank you for all you do!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How old are your kids? I ask bc I recently made a career change to teaching and it’s really not the family friendly job everyone says. I’m glad I waited until my kids were late teens. Obviously the summers off make it family friendly but that’s it. I’d also strongly recommend focusing on private and Catholic schools. They’re more like how teaching was before job quality tanked in public. Kids are better behaved, parents more involved, you have the ability to discipline.
If you feel the calling, it’s absolutely rewarding in ways my other jobs weren’t. Im really happy I did it.

OP - They are 4 and 1. Family friendly work is very important to me. Is there a grade range better for that? I’m also exploring becoming a school counselor- it would require another MA though. I wonder if that’s more family friendly?

There are ways in which teaching is family friendly, and ways in which is isn't. There is zero flexibility in the school day. I have a kid with a chronic medical issue and it can be very hard to get in contact with a doctor or pharmacist to do simple things like correct a prescription, or ask for a refill. Often the office will want to call back, but if I find 5 minutes to call, and they call back in 10 minutes, I'm no longer able to answer.

My kids are older, but when they were little it was hard never to be the parent there for the poetry celebration, or the halloween parade, or the pumpkin patch trip. Because of the way teacher leave is structured, I could maybe do one of those a year. Now, some of that is that I had a kid who needed specialist appointments that weren't always possible to put during school breaks, and teacher leave is generally set up that you have to take a minimum of a half day for each kid.

And leaving because you got a call midday for a sick kid at daycare is almost impossible. Taking leave the next day, when you can plan, is easier. You'll be up to midnight making sub plans, but it's still more doable.

In addition, your start and end times will mean that you will almost certainly have to pay for both before and after care, unless maybe you teach high school, kids are in elementary school, and your schools are close, and you bring a ton of work home. But in that case, you will need to start before any before cares are open, so you will need a spouse who can cover the mornings.

On the other hand, you'll get summers if you can afford not to work another job. You'll get winter break which is kind of glorious. You might get spring break with your kid if you can afford to live in the district you teach in. Those are really nice.

Basically, if you and your spouse are 50/50 parents, and they have a different kind of flexibility than you have, it can work quite well. If you are in a relationship where you're the default parent, or where your spouse brings in the majority of income and expects your job to be the flexible one? That's a lot harder.

I will also say that Kindergarten was probably the year I needed the absolute most flexibility as a parent, and first year teaching is far and away the hardest. I was a teacher before I became a parent so I didn't deal with those two things at once. So, if you have a 4 year old, I would carefully about timing.

As a parent, looking in, I don't understand why people would want to be a counselor in public schools.

My kids have had one intelligent, helpful high school counselor who works with me to implement the curriculum options I've discovered/chosen for them to work within the system. The others don't show much interest in helping kids do better than just checking boxes. People who become counselors don't seem to be the good with details, high performing types you see in business. That's probably because of pay.

A different counselor, in middle school, described her function as giving a safe space for venting. She was unable to take any useful action when my kid was having trouble with friends and acting disengaged in classes. I wanted some concrete changes to happen and in the end got some by talking to the principal. That counselor ended up leaving for a community college counseling job.

From what I can see, there's not much time to build a rapport with your caseload of kids or to really customize things for them. It's just project management of a caseload and running through a lot of fairly simple paperwork processes.

I don't want my post to sound like it's not possible to find good counselors. However, I never experienced any in my academic life...in fact I had some who screwed things up a bit for me. And my kids have only had one who matches the skillset of analysts at my corporate F500 employer. My sister also recently moved from one "good" school district to another, and the counselors on both ends were inconvenient and inaccurate to work with.

I feel bad this sounds so mean but I would not advise anyone to go into school counseling as a career. I understand the issues with classroom teaching and I would definitely choose that if I wanted to take a role in contributing to student improvements and growth.

OP, maybe you can find a non-profit that needs an operations manager? Or a small family-friendly company?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How old are your kids? I ask bc I recently made a career change to teaching and it’s really not the family friendly job everyone says. I’m glad I waited until my kids were late teens. Obviously the summers off make it family friendly but that’s it. I’d also strongly recommend focusing on private and Catholic schools. They’re more like how teaching was before job quality tanked in public. Kids are better behaved, parents more involved, you have the ability to discipline.
If you feel the calling, it’s absolutely rewarding in ways my other jobs weren’t. Im really happy I did it.

OP - They are 4 and 1. Family friendly work is very important to me. Is there a grade range better for that? I’m also exploring becoming a school counselor- it would require another MA though. I wonder if that’s more family friendly?

Teaching will require enough courses you probably want to just get the masters anyway. The pay bump is worth it if you stay at least 5 years usually (find the cheapest online masters you can get if you don’t care about student teaching).

Corporate offices are way more flexible/family friendly than schools. Counselors are longer contracts than teachers so you lose out on part of the summer perk.

I would strongly recommend against part time teaching. You’ll do 3/4 of the work for half the pay and get zero job security (it’s 1 year contracts, no continuing contract)

Don’t pick the grade level based on perceived workload or you’ll hate it. Pick based on whether you prefer engaging with young children, early adolescents, or teens. You will spend 95% of your day surrounded by this age group.

Part time teaching if over 0.5 is full benefits but reduced impact on retirement. Full contract. Public school. Just fyi.

DP. I recommend against part-time teaching because you’ll still put in close to 40 hours of work, just without the equivalent pay.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How old are your kids? I ask bc I recently made a career change to teaching and it’s really not the family friendly job everyone says. I’m glad I waited until my kids were late teens. Obviously the summers off make it family friendly but that’s it. I’d also strongly recommend focusing on private and Catholic schools. They’re more like how teaching was before job quality tanked in public. Kids are better behaved, parents more involved, you have the ability to discipline.
If you feel the calling, it’s absolutely rewarding in ways my other jobs weren’t. Im really happy I did it.

OP - They are 4 and 1. Family friendly work is very important to me. Is there a grade range better for that? I’m also exploring becoming a school counselor- it would require another MA though. I wonder if that’s more family friendly?

Teaching will require enough courses you probably want to just get the masters anyway. The pay bump is worth it if you stay at least 5 years usually (find the cheapest online masters you can get if you don’t care about student teaching).

Corporate offices are way more flexible/family friendly than schools. Counselors are longer contracts than teachers so you lose out on part of the summer perk.

I would strongly recommend against part time teaching. You’ll do 3/4 of the work for half the pay and get zero job security (it’s 1 year contracts, no continuing contract)

Don’t pick the grade level based on perceived workload or you’ll hate it. Pick based on whether you prefer engaging with young children, early adolescents, or teens. You will spend 95% of your day surrounded by this age group.

Part time teaching if over 0.5 is full benefits but reduced impact on retirement. Full contract. Public school. Just fyi.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How old are your kids? I ask bc I recently made a career change to teaching and it’s really not the family friendly job everyone says. I’m glad I waited until my kids were late teens. Obviously the summers off make it family friendly but that’s it. I’d also strongly recommend focusing on private and Catholic schools. They’re more like how teaching was before job quality tanked in public. Kids are better behaved, parents more involved, you have the ability to discipline.
If you feel the calling, it’s absolutely rewarding in ways my other jobs weren’t. Im really happy I did it.

OP - They are 4 and 1. Family friendly work is very important to me. Is there a grade range better for that? I’m also exploring becoming a school counselor- it would require another MA though. I wonder if that’s more family friendly?

Teaching will require enough courses you probably want to just get the masters anyway. The pay bump is worth it if you stay at least 5 years usually (find the cheapest online masters you can get if you don’t care about student teaching).

Corporate offices are way more flexible/family friendly than schools. Counselors are longer contracts than teachers so you lose out on part of the summer perk.

I would strongly recommend against part time teaching. You’ll do 3/4 of the work for half the pay and get zero job security (it’s 1 year contracts, no continuing contract)

Don’t pick the grade level based on perceived workload or you’ll hate it. Pick based on whether you prefer engaging with young children, early adolescents, or teens. You will spend 95% of your day surrounded by this age group.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How old are your kids? I ask bc I recently made a career change to teaching and it’s really not the family friendly job everyone says. I’m glad I waited until my kids were late teens. Obviously the summers off make it family friendly but that’s it. I’d also strongly recommend focusing on private and Catholic schools. They’re more like how teaching was before job quality tanked in public. Kids are better behaved, parents more involved, you have the ability to discipline.
If you feel the calling, it’s absolutely rewarding in ways my other jobs weren’t. Im really happy I did it.

OP - They are 4 and 1. Family friendly work is very important to me. Is there a grade range better for that? I’m also exploring becoming a school counselor- it would require another MA though. I wonder if that’s more family friendly?

High school teaching has a heavy grading load, and you’ll be doing most of it at home. I work 14-15 extra hours throughout the week, usually with the bulk of it on weekends.

The bigger issue is the personal exhaustion. I don’t have energy for my own kids after teaching 140 teenagers all day. I’m spent.