Once a Teacher, Always a Teacher

I’ve told my story before—in lots of places to lots of people across the nation. It also appears in bits and pieces in my co-authored book, Escaping the School Leader’s Dunk Tank, and was conceptually grown with Rebecca Coda as one of our all-time most powerful passion projects to help not only school leaders, but all educators deal with and work through organizational chaos and adult misbehavior that takes place in our schools.

But, then, there is my contributing chapter in the book, entitled, The Fire Within, edited by Mandy Froehlich--a beautiful human being who tackles the tough topics just like me and Rebecca do. My chapter focuses on my own situational nightmare of being a superintendent in times of extreme adversity and tumult—a time when I needed to step down. A time of defeat and mistakes. A time to gain more wisdom. A time to get back to my roots, someday, perhaps.

So, I needed to support my family and get back to work. You know how it goes. Live modestly, but pay the bills and make sure my kids could get a cavity filled or a prescription when ill without paying full price due to having no health insurance coverage. Well, I landed on my feet right away and stepped into a position of leadership within the business sector—and, thank goodness, it was related to K-12 schools. I was the Director of K-12 Education for a book and curriculum company which, unfortunately, after being established for over 20 years, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and laid off slews of people, including me. For them, Chapter 7 is looming just a few weeks away, sadly enough.

Again, I was faced with unemployment just this past March. I started to look around and make contacts with my friends. Some people promised to help me, but didn’t help me. Some people promised to help me land a few leads and they came through with helping to secure a few interviews for me. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do, though. Principal? Superintendent? Manager? Director? Supervisor? Assembly line worker? Not sure. Just, not sure.

I decided that I wasn’t going to give up getting back to what I was trained for and passionate about: education and kids. I could have gotten a job somewhere else doing work that wouldn’t fulfill me. Meaningless work just to pay the bills so my wife and I wouldn’t have to sell our house. But, something more needed to happen. I was sure of that and wasn't going to give up.

After four months of looking for work back in the K-12 setting, I was eithe