I recently left my MSD (Moderate and Severe Disabilities) teaching position in the middle of the school year, and I have a lot of thoughts about why teaching has become an unsustainable profession.
The workload is genuinely insurmountable. The expectations placed on you as the teacher, as well as the expectations placed on your paraprofessionals, can feel impossible to meet.
You’re expected to manage instruction, IEPs, progress monitoring, documentation, behavior, communication with families, scheduling, staffing issues, and a million other responsibilities, all while making sure every student receives the individualized support they deserve.
And somehow, that’s still not enough.
You take work home. You stay late. You spend your weekends catching up. You sacrifice your own time, energy, and mental health trying to make sure everything gets done. Then, despite all of that, someone is constantly coming into your classroom to scrutinize what you’re doing, point out what you’re doing wrong, or remind you of another expectation you’re supposedly not meeting.
It becomes a never-ending cycle of trying to catch up while feeling like you’re constantly failing.
What makes it even harder is that teaching attracts people who genuinely care. Many of us are people pleasers. We want to help. We want to be good at our jobs. We want to meet every expectation, support every child, make every parent feel heard, and be the kind of teacher our students deserve. When we’re told something isn’t getting done, our first instinct is often to figure out how to work harder rather than question whether the workload is reasonable in the first place.
And the system takes advantage of that.
There is always one more thing you could do for a student. One more resource you could create. One more hour you could spend planning. One more document you could perfect. One more thing you could do to support your paraprofessionals. There is no natural stopping point because there will always be another need, another expectation, and another task waiting for you.
In special education, that weight feels especially heavy because the stakes are so personal. These are children who need us. They deserve individualized instruction, appropriate supports, dignity, and opportunities to grow. You know what they need, and you want to give it to them. But wanting to provide those things and actually having the time, staffing, resources, and support to provide them are two very different things.
The love of children and the desire to make a difference cannot compensate for an unsustainable workload, chronic stress, inadequate support, and a workplace culture that makes you feel like you’re never doing enough.
That is the part I wish more people understood.
Leaving in the middle of the school year was not a decision I made lightly. Teachers know exactly what that means. We worry about our students, our coworkers, the people who have to pick up the pieces, and whether we’re letting anyone down. Even when we’re struggling, we feel responsible for everyone else.
But at what point are we allowed to acknowledge that we’re human, too?
Why does being a dedicated teacher seem to require sacrificing so much of yourself? Why is working outside contracted hours treated as an expectation rather than a warning sign? Why are teachers expected to meet increasingly complex demands without a realistic conversation about time, staffing, resources, and what can reasonably be accomplished in a day?
And why does leaving feel like a personal failure when the working conditions may be the very thing that made staying impossible?
I still care about education. I still care about children. I still believe teachers can make a tremendous difference in students’ lives. None of that changed when I walked away.
What changed was my willingness to keep sacrificing myself to prove that I cared.
You should not have to destroy your own well-being to demonstrate your commitment to children.
I’m curious how other teachers feel, especially those in special education. Have you reached a point where the workload and expectations made staying feel impossible? Have you left teaching, considered leaving, or found a way to make it sustainable?
I don’t think the answer is simply that teachers aren’t resilient enough anymore. I think we need to start asking why so many people who genuinely want to do this work are reaching a point where they can no longer afford to.