who are current or former teachers to tell us about a situation at work that made them want to leave teaching altogether. Their stories were truly devastating, but they're important to discuss. Here's what they shared:"At the last active shooter training, the police officers said they were going to shoot us with rubber bullets. They burst in and shot blanks at the floor, and left.
"Turns out, he got kicked out of every school he attended for setting fire to a teacher's dress, pushing a teacher down the stairs, and pulling a knife on a teacher. Apparently our administration was scared of him, so they let him do whatever. He was finally suspended for five days for threatening to blow up the school. He was only suspended because he posted it online and a parent had to call central office for anything to be done about it.
"He told me that I’m his employee first between 7:45 a.m. and 3:45 p.m. every day. I said, 'Absolutely not,' and walked out of his office. He reported me to CPS for 'breaching my foster child's confidentiality.' Thankfully, I have an amazing licensing worker who knew it was a false report. I left that school not even two months later in the middle of the school year because I couldn't stay in that toxic environment. This was only one example.
"She hung up the phone and came over the intercom to tell me that if I couldn't handle that child, then maybe I should just leave and never teach again. She did this while my students and the girl were in my classroom. This made the girl act ever worse than before because she assumed nothing would happen to her. I almost walked out that day and swore that I wouldn’t be returning to the classroom after this school year.
"At the time of those conversations, I was met with full support and even an expression that this principal had gone through something similar. What I got instead was a person who was supposed to be compassionate saying, 'That’s the caseworkers job, not yours. They can take him. He won’t even be with you for long.' Not only was I hurt, but I was disappointed and I almost quit on the spot.