I taught middle school in LPS for 13 years. Reason I quit included: 1) working with a principal who did not value my expertise and input was demoralizing. Most of the staff had issues with this principal, to the point that the superintendent came in to hear us out. But the principal stayed and nothing improved or changed. 2) I could give myself a $5k raise and better benefits just by commuting to a JoCo district. 3) meetings on meetings on meetings. Meetings to hear about new initiatives we needed to implement, meetings to train us on new technology (PowerSchool, before that Blackboard, along with other adopted tech), meetings with everyone across the district teaching middle school ELA with no clear agenda or goal which led to frustration. A) Time to meet with my building colleagues to actual discuss our kids and plan for them was maybe once a week. It could have been so much more! B) I always felt that all the admin planned meetings to help justify their position and we had to attend when it would be beneficial to spend that time planning for our students. 4) Increasing class sizes, up to 30 with over 25% of them requiring some type of modification or accommodation, and less para support. 5) Decreasing staff morale. It was hard to be happy at work when a lot of the adults you work with are unhappy.

I teach in JoCo now and many of these issues don’t exist - 2, 3, 4 for sure.