Resignation: My Retirement from the Arena of Pubescent Drama, District Delusions, and Deeply Useless Meetings

A farewell from a former educator who survived the circus—and finally dropped the mic.

Subject: Resignation: My Retirement from the Arena of Pubescent Drama, District Delusions, and Deeply Useless Meetings
(Disclaimer: This letter is intended to be satire. If you’re offended, maybe reflect on why. Or don’t. I’m done either way.)

Dear Administration, Colleagues, Parents, Students, and the Nine Assistant Superintendents Who’ve Never Made Eye Contact With Me,

It is with great relief and the energy of someone escaping a slow-motion avalanche of overdue Google Forms that I hereby resign from my position as an educator with CCSD, effective immediately. After years in the trenches—armed with dry-erase markers, state-mandated jargon, and the futile hope of instilling knowledge—I am finally stepping away from this theatrical production we call “school.” I’m off to pursue less hazardous professions, like lion taming or bomb disposal.

Let’s begin with the students. Sweet summer children. Darlings of the digital void. These are kids who will spend four straight hours customizing a Roblox avatar that looks like a banana in sunglasses, but claim they’re “too overwhelmed” to write three sentences. One student once told me, “I couldn’t submit the assignment because my hamster was having an identity crisis and needed my emotional support.” Of course. Let me light a tiny candle for Mr. Nibbles and enter your A+ in invisible ink in case he finds himself again.

The entitlement? If we could harness it as clean energy, Nevada would export power by sunrise. Some students treat me like a glitchy chatbot whose sole job is to inflate their grade, validate their excuses, and provide endless free pencils from my magical pencil-producing forest. They’ll ask if late work can be full credit because “I had stuff going on.” Sure, kid. So did I. It was called your class.

Now, let’s talk about the parents—those heroic advocates of accountability deflection. I’ve received emails asking if we could “just skip the essay” because their child had “a really packed week defending their Minecraft village from raiders and curating their TikTok content.” Another suggested I give extra credit for “being a good human” because their kid held the door open once. Sure, let’s throw in a Nobel Peace Prize while we’re at it.

Then there’s the majestic time-sink known as “professional development.” I have endured sessions that made me long for the sweet release of dental surgery. Another time, we role-played conflict resolution by pretending to be woodland creatures. I was a badger. I have not emotionally recovered. I’d rather bleed out from all of my orifices than attend another one of those sessions. Kagan and Hattie sound like law firms, and the strategy’s the same—bore you into submission so you’ll comply with their icebreakers, group claps, and role-play scenarios that make even mime school look respectable.

And let’s not forget the hours worked well past contract time. “Work-life balance” in education is like Bigfoot: frequently referenced, never seen. I’ve graded papers at weddings, written lesson plans in waiting rooms, and replied to emails during dental cleanings. Once, I prepped a vocabulary quiz during colonoscopy prep. I am not proud—but I was prepared.

As for district officials: your micromanagement has turned teaching into an interpretive dance performed in a straitjacket. Every week, a new initiative, a new form, a new contradictory directive. I now spend more time documenting what I will teach than actually teaching. Acronyms fly at us like alphabet soup grenades: PD, SEL, MTSS, OMG, WTF, LOL, BRB—at this point, I think they’re just texting me.

So, I depart for a magical place where the bells don’t ring every 53 minutes, where no one asks “Is this graded?” before even reading the assignment, where rubrics spontaneously combust on sight, and PowerPoints are outlawed under penalty of exile. To those still holding the line: may your coffee be bottomless, your Wi-Fi unbreakable, and your patience fortified by whatever dark magic keeps you going.

Sincerely,
Former Teacher, Now Freelance Nap Enthusiast, Full-Time Sanity Recovery Specialist
Recipient of the “Most Likely to Answer Emails from the Void” Award, 2016–2025