New to this sub but have felt this way for years and am happy to have found my way here. Sorry if my post is out of place, just wanted your insight.
I've been reading through the posts and am starting to second guess what I'm doing after seeing how much worse so many others have it and how bad the job market is. I was fooled by all the talk of labor shortages and “we're hiring” but now I'm afraid to leave a stable-ish (but very unhealthy) job.
TL:DR: I'm a teacher in a shitty conservative district; angry racist parents run the school and admin hides in their offices while we're free to be verbally abused, sexually harassed, threatened, etc with no support and no consequences for the kids. Our trumpy school board has our contracts and union in their sights and things are going to get MUCH worse before they get better. It got to the point where I was having daily panic attacks and am now on medical leave. I was planning to apply for design jobs in hopes of finding more work/life balance, but now I'm afraid I'll never find another job, or jobs I do find will be as bad or worse than teaching. Should I leave an unhealthy situation in hopes of finding something better, or be grateful for what I do have and try to suck it up?
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Background: I'm a high school teacher and although teachers are famously underpaid, I'm lucky to be in a district where I'm making great money *on paper.* However, after $1200/mo in health care for myself and my husband (that's the cheapest option), taxes, etc, I come home with about $4000/month, 11 months of the year, and I'm the only one with an income while my husband job searches.
Our community is SUPER conservative and has been rabidly anti-teacher since the pandemic started and our school board is gunning for our union and contracts, among other things. I have been dragged into several incidents where I've had to defend myself, what I teach, and what I stand for in the classroom, sometimes with the help of a lawyer, to parents and our school board who have been riled up by the conservative culture war. On top of that, the vast majority of their kids are entitled assholes who regularly disrespect, verbally abuse, and sometimes sexually harass or threaten teachers with no consequences because our admin is afraid of the parents.
This has always been a hard job and I've never been able to achieve work/life balance, but I used to love teaching. Before COVID I felt like I could hang in there.
DILEMMA: After COVID, everything changed. I stuck it out through distance learning but once everyone came back to classes, the behavior has been off the wall and we have no support. It's to the point I've been having frequent panic attacks and crying fits at work and feeling like I'm in literal physical danger due to sexual harassment (from a staff member; and don't tell me to report, there's no one to go to. No one gives a shit) and a general air of physical violence being possible at any minute, I took the rest of the school year off for medical leave. My plan was to use this time to try to get my head right, then apply for design jobs (that's what I teach and have a degree in, but little tangible job experience outside of teaching). I've applied to a few jobs already and of course haven't heard back. I haven't resigned from my job yet, as far as they know I'm coming back next year, but I was hoping I'd find something better by then.
After reading this sub and seeing how awful everyone's jobs are, I'm feeling like it's crazy I could hope for better somewhere else. This job sucks but at least I have tenure (a guaranteed job, but no guarantee of what I'll be teaching or where. They retaliate when they're mad at people and give them horrible teaching assignments traveling across multiple campuses) and vacations throughout the year (although if you know a teacher, chances are you know those vacations are not work-free).