How to Know If It’s Time to Leave Teaching: The Burnout Cost You Can’t Ignore

You’re already paying the price - now it’s time to count the cost.

In this episode of Teachers in Transition, Vanessa pulls back the curtain on what it really costs to stay in a job that’s slowly burning you out. From sleepless Sunday nights to surprise pizza party scams, we’re exploring the Three Coins every teacher spends—Time, Money, and Stress—and what it means to start reclaiming them.

You'll hear:

• Why burnout isn’t a sign of weakness—it’s a debt you've been paying in silence
• A personal story about how a fundraiser gone wrong exposed the system’s financial gaslighting
• A 30-second end-of-day hack that helps you leave work at work (for real this time)
• A smarter way to think about clarity—without needing a perfect job title to start
• How childhood joy can become career direction, and why 8-year-old you might know more than you think

If you’ve ever wondered what else you can do or whether it’s time to leave, this episode will help you start asking better questions—before burnout makes the decision for you.

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The transcript to this podcast is found on the episode’s homepage at Buzzspout

Transcript

Welcome back to Teachers in Transition. I’m Vanessa Jackson, and after teaching for 25 years, I left teaching after I decided that I had given enough time, money, AND stress so I left and worked in Corporate America in the world of contingent staffing.  And now?  I work with teachers to help them realize that they’re not alone and help them find their way out of chaos and into clarity. Today we’re talking about something that most burned-out educators suspect in their gut long before they can put words to it – the cost of teaching.  We’ll talk about what it costs to leave and what it costs to stay. I have a simple hack to help your brain to end your workday, and then we’re going to talk about finding clarity when you start the job search. 

There’s a line in one of the songs from my favorite band, Rush, that says “We will pay the price, but we will not count the cost.”  The thing is, if we aren’t actually counting the cost, the body, the mind, and the soul keep their own score.  And it usually comes crashing down around us somehow. 

Here’s something we don’t talk about enough: every decision has a cost. Whether you stay, go, delay, or distract yourself—you’re paying somehow. But most of us aren’t paying in ways we can clearly see. We’re not always swiping a credit card. That’s easy to see. These payments are sneakier than that.

We pay in time. We pay in money. We pay in stress. These are the Three Coins.  

And here’s the part no one warns us about: you will pay. The only question is how.

And we’ll start with stress - the heaviest coin of all. The one that lives in your body long after the school bell rings. It shows up in your sleep (or lack thereof), your relationships, your immune system, your sense of self. It’s the wear and tear of running on empty while pretending to be fine.  And it has a collective effect over time in part because teachers ALWAYS put those doctor’s appointments off as long as they can.  After all, if you were to drop dead, the district will complain that you didn’t give advance notice and then have your job posted before you family has buried you.  Stress is expensive. 

Then there's actual money. Not just salary, but all the hidden costs. The snacks. The supplies. The decorations. The t-shirts. The Target runs. If you’ve ever funded a lesson, a party, or a child’s breakfast from your own pocket, you know: you weren’t careless with money. You were too generous for a system that counted on it.

When I left the classroom and took a corporate job, I technically took a 5% pay cut. But somehow, I had more money. It was because I wasn’t funding my job anymore – no more supplying students because their parents couldn’t or wouldn’t.  No longer buying supplies that the school SHOULD have paid for, but they reneged on their word or the procurement process takes so long those students would have graduated – so you step up and pay out.  Or that you don’t want to use technology so obsolete that it doesn’t function os you provide your own.  We’ve all done it.  And it’s expensive. 

And finally – time. This is the coin that slips through your fingers. This is the most important and most valuable coin. You can’t make more of it.  You can’t get it back. The Sunday nights lost to dread. The evenings and weekends that disappear into grading and guilt. The summers that don’t restore you; they just let you crawl back to the starting line.  The family time you didn’t get to have – or get to enjoy while you were having it? 

Every month you wait to figure out your next move is a month not spent building a new path, or healing, or getting paid what you’re worth. Teaching has taken a lot of your time - and not all of it was well-spent. That’s a different kind of expensive. That time didn’t just disappear. It was taken. It was demanded.  

If you feel like you’re falling apart, it’s normal.  You’re not broken. You’re just overdrawn.

So why am I telling you this? Because if you’re standing at the edge of a decision—whether to stay, to go, to explore something else—you’re not just debating job titles. You’re counting the coins and doing an audit of sorts.

You’re already paying. So it’s time to ask: how do you want to pay?

And there’s a meme about moms and dishes. It goes like this: Mom asks someone to do the dishes. No one responds. She asks again. Nothing. Eventually, she’s stomping through the kitchen, slamming drawers, yelling, and suddenly everyone goes, "Why is Mom so mad?"

The real question is: why did she have to lose her mind just to be heard?

Now, picture a veteran teacher. They’ve been through it all. They know what works. But when they speak up, they get brushed off. Labeled difficult. Called negative. And over time, they stop trying to be diplomatic. They get ‘grumpy.’

We joke about the "get off my lawn" phase of teaching, but the truth is, it often comes from deep exhaustion. From putting off medical care. From skipping lunch. From being dehydrated. From being the one who always steps up, and never being given room to sit down.  

This isn’t about attitude. It’s about depletion.  It is the effect of paying too much for too long. It’s what happens when you’ve been paying in stress for so long, you don’t have anything left to give—except maybe sarcasm and a side-eye.

And if that’s where you are? It doesn’t make you a bad teacher. It makes you human. And overdue for relief.  And I know that the world doesn’t want to think that teachers are humans, but we are. And I bet that deep down, you still have more to give – you’re just tired of giving it to a system that has treated you like a Kleenex – disposable. 

It isn’t even just that they overstress – sometimes they rely on the teacher’s caring nature to cover the budget. 

I remember a school fundraiser 20 years ago. The winning class was promised a pizza party and a $50 gift card for the teacher. You know the type – it’s a school-wide fundraiser where they pit all the classes against each other, and the gift card is extortionary to get the teachers to play along.  In a middle school setting, where I was, they usually go off of the advisory class, but for some reason, they just went with second period that year.  It was probably the most convenient since that’s when they did the announcements.  My second-period class that year?  was a beginner band class, with 83 students in it.  They did well, but we knew they were going to win. We were so far in the lead that two days in they quit announcing the numbers of sales.  They just said things like Mrs. So&So’s class is in second place and closing!  (they weren’t.)  We walked away with the W.  

But when we followed up to claim the prize, We were told they were going to provide 4 pizzas.  Four. For 83 kids and 2 teachers. Despite the common misconception that band directors can only count to four, we could ALL do the math.  When we asked how that math worked, we were told the $50 gift card was supposed to pay for the pizzas and be the teacher reward. For 83 kids. Four pizzas. I never saw the gift card.  My class never saw the pizzas.  Guess which kids and teachers never fell for that fundraising scam ever again. 

Because that moment summed up something a lot of teachers experience:

We don’t just work unpaid overtime. We literally spend our own earned money to do our jobs. Spirit days. Snacks. T-shirts. Bulletin board supplies. Classroom pantries. Amazon lists. Birthday cupcakes.

Again, you’re not bad with money. You’re just used to spending it on your students because the alternative is watching them go without. If you are thinking of leaving the classroom, run an audit and REALLY look at what you are spending in your classroom. It will shock you.  It’s one of those things we don’t really want to think about very carefully because we know it will hurt that much more. 

When I left the classroom and started working remotely, I realized just how much I had been spending. Even with a lower salary on paper, I had a lot more financial breathing room.  It was more than just my gas money. It was because I wasn’t carrying the whole system on my debit card anymore.

Teachers have been absorbing the cost of systemic failure.  The body, heart and soul of every teachers have been keeping the tabs. It’s expensive

Moving on to our teacher hack – this is a simple little hack or tip designed to help you claw back some time or get a little space back in your brain to help you achieve your goals outside the classroom. 

Time-Saving Hack: The 30-Second Exit Reset

Today’s hack is a quick one: Before you leave for the day, take 30 seconds to reset your space. Stack the papers. Close the tabs. Make sure the things are recharging. Leave your desk in a way that makes Future You exhale.  Trust me – Tomorrow you is counting on you!

Because no matter how tired Today You is, Tomorrow You still has to walk back in. 
 And really try to retire the idea that you have to finish before you can be done. There’s no finishing a teacher’s workload. Sisyphus has a better chance of getting that rock rolled up the hill. 

Bonus tip? Pick a theme song to close your day. Seriously. Music is powerful. It can become a trigger to help your brain switch gears.  You know – like that old Clean Up song that Barney and those kids sang.  It was annoying, but they all sang it and they all cleaned up. You can pick one too – Closing Time comes to mind.  Maybe not the ol’ Take This Job and Shove it song.  Heck, Maybe use Barney’s song. Although if you remember Bill Engvall had a comedy bit about the fact that the dinosaurs were extinct because they didn’t want to hang with Barney and sing those songs either – that could also work in your favor to help get out of the room). 

Either way, let the music tell your brain: we’re done here.
 
 And I want to take a quick moment here to ask for your help before we move to the career transition segment  🙌 Help More Teachers Find Their Exit Strategies

If this episode gave you something to think about—or just made you feel a little less alone— please would you take 30 seconds to rate and review the podcast?

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
 I’m counting on you. Your words help other teachers find this show, and it tells the algorithm this is content worth sharing.

🎧 And if you know a colleague, a friend, or another “grumpy teacher” who needs to hear this?
 Send it their way.  You never know who’s been waiting for a sign. Or a lifeline. 

OK, so now…

Moving into our career transition and job search segment, today we’re working on the clarity piece.  That part where we are trying to figure out who we are if we aren’t a teacher and what we want to do.  As I’ve said before: Your résumé isn’t just a list of experiences. It’s a set of answers. And every job posting is the question being answered.

Start small. What kind of problems do you love solving? What kinds of problems do people always come to you to solve? Are you energized by messy human conversations or clean logistical puzzles? Do you light up when you're mentoring someone, designing systems, creating clarity, - maybe  helping someone feel seen?

Think about the moments in teaching that made you forget to check the clock. What were you doing? Who were you helping? What part of your brain was lit up?

That’s all data.  Think about how you feel when you got to do hobbies.  What is you liked about those?

Clarity doesn’t come from scrolling through job boards waiting for the perfect title to jump out at you. We’ve all done that too. It comes from self-inventory. From curiosity. From remembering what matters and reconnecting with what you’re good at—and what you actually like doing.

This is where a tool like What Color Is Your Parachute? comes in. It doesn’t hand you a job title. It hands you a mirror. It helps you start organizing your thoughts in ways that make career direction clearer, not more chaotic.  If you go back into old Teachers in Transitions podcast episodes, I had a mini-series about the elements of this book from epsidoes 179 through 186.  That was a while ago!

And here’s another gentle place to start: remember what fascinated you as a kid. What could 8-year-old you do for hours without needing to be reminded? What kind of play made time disappear? What did you pretend to be?  It’s funny – I used to always like ot draw houses – schematics of houses.  They were not very good – they did not include things like wall space or electrical or anything like that.  They were just shapes and where rooms where.  It doesn't surprise me at all that my daughter is now a civil engineer. 

This isn’t just a nostalgia trip. It’s a reconnecting to instinct. To energy. To who you were before those teacher performance metrics entered the chat.  Find quiet time to listen to your soul.  

Start collecting the personal data that helps you ask these questions. Because once you know the questions that matter, the answers get easier to find.

If you aren’t sure if you’re ready to leave the classroom or not, or if you have a teacher friend in that same boat, I am inviting you to come join me live for the Decide course on Friday, September 27 at 2PM Central.

We’ll walk through:

• Assessing the true costs of staying and leaving
• Options when you can’t stay but aren’t ready to leave
• Assessing if you are ready to go, and 
• Building clarity about what’s next

This isn’t about pushing you to leave. It’s about helping you stop leaking energy, time, and peace into a system that’s not giving back.  Remember the Giveng Tree.  It did not end up well for the tree. 

Sign up at teachersintransition.com

You’ve given enough. It’s time to build a life that gives back.

Because clarity isn’t a light switch.
 It’s a process.
 And it’s yours to begin.

I’d love to hear from you – have you picked a song to help leave that classroom at the end of the day? I’ll share my faces in a future episode. 

Email me at Vanessa@teachersintransition.com
Leave a voicemail or text at 512-640-9099
Schedule a free Discovery Session with me: https://teachersintransition.com/calendar
Follow me on Bluesky @beyondteaching.bsky.social
Find me on Threads and Instagram  AND TikTok @teachers.in.transition
And even on X at @EduExitStrategy
Follow on Facebook: just search for Teachers in Transition and look for our blue phoenix.
Or? Join the Teachers in Transition Podcast Club on Facebook
 
If you weren’t able to write all that down that fast, you can scoot over to Buzzspout to the Teachers in Transition page.  You can find the episodes, and all of this is in the show notes.

I can’t wait to connect with YOU and hear YOUR story.