Why I Took a Break From Education

At the close of the 2020-2021 school year, I reluctantly left education. I halted my pursuit of a doctorate (60% through), deleted my Linkedin, and deleted my Portfolio website. I was done.

The reason for this change was directly based on my various experiences in educational leadership roles. As a school teacher, I had the liberty of immediately implementing all new initiatives that I found would benefit kids. I rarely ever had any "pushback" from admin.

However as a school leader, everything changed. I could no longer immediately implement would-be effective new initiatives benefiting kids, staff, parents, etc. The new schoolwide initiatives had to receive the blessing of the top school leader.

Unfortunately, what I found at several different schools was that the school leaders did not share my sense of urgency. Further, it was common for school leaders to tell me that the new initiatives would have to wait until they fit into the timeline for the 3-5 year plan. As mentioned on my 3-5 year webpage, I'm more of a 3-5 week guy 😃 . Struggling learners (staff or student) don't have 3-5 years to wait!

So, out of frustration I decided to leave the profession.

Why I Returned

Over the past several years away from education, I moved to Florida and explored several different careers. Specifically, I found a good fit in HVAC, and made a very good living. I could still develop trust and relationships (just like in education with staff, students, and parents) with homeowners and could satisfy my math/tech fascination with the technical aspect of the role.

However, over time I missed education. See, education is a very unique profession. You really can make a difference in the lives of staff and students every day, and I couldn't replicate that in the HVAC industry. I missed learning with kids and staff members.

So, several months ago I resumed my doctorate, build up my Linkedin page again, and created another Portfolio website.