Leaving What I Loved to Protect What I Believe In.

Leaving a school you love is its own kind of heartbreak.

Not the dramatic kind — the quiet kind. The kind that comes from knowing you adored the students, the families, and the community… yet you still couldn’t stay. That tension between love and integrity is one of the hardest lessons education keeps teaching me.

Because here’s the truth no one really prepares you for: sometimes you can love a place and still outgrow it. Sometimes the relationships are beautiful, but the vision is not aligned. And that’s what happened to me.

I loved my kids. I loved that community. But I struggled to keep my integrity in an environment that did not share the same literacy vision I hold so deeply. I believe in the slow, intentional work of teaching kids how to read, how to think, how to write, and how to understand the world through words. But I found myself surrounded by people who weren’t moving with that same urgency, that same conviction, that same reverence for what literacy can unlock. And over time, that misalignment started to feel heavy — heavier than I wanted to admit.

The complicated part? Education is run by humans.

And humans are imperfect.

When I think about education, I think about goodness — children, growth, possibility, transformation. But schools are also full of adults, and sometimes our imperfections collide with the vision we’re supposed to share. Sometimes we don’t leave our personal issues at the door. Sometimes ego walks into the meeting before the mission does. Sometimes trauma wins.

And sometimes, the people you expect to be safest with… aren’t.

This is the part that’s hardest to say out loud:

my experience was complicated by the fact that I was a Black woman working alongside other Black women.

That’s a story with layers — history, expectation, sisterhood, survival, pressure, unspoken rules. Being a Black woman in education means you carry a certain responsibility, a certain strength, a certain understanding. But it also means navigating dynamics that are deep, emotional, and generational. It means facing hurt you didn’t expect from people who look like you. It means realizing that shared identity doesn’t always mean shared values, shared vision, or shared healing.

It forced me to confront a truth I didn’t want to face:

just because we are the same does not mean we are aligned.

And that’s complicated.

Messy.

Painful.

Real.

But even through the struggle, I’m choosing to hold onto the gratitude — the students who made me laugh, the families who trusted me, the moments of connection that reminded me why I do this work. Leaving doesn’t erase what was beautiful. Leaving doesn’t cancel the love.

It just means I chose myself.

My vision.

My calling.

My integrity.

And as much as it hurt to walk away, I know this:

I am not meant to shrink to fit into places I was called to expand.

I am not meant to compromise literacy for comfort.

I am not meant to silence what I know to be true just to keep the peace.

So yes — it was heartbreaking to leave.

But it was also necessary.

Because I want to teach in places where literacy matters.

Where Black children are honored.

Where growth is prioritized over shortcuts.

Where accountability is not a threat but a promise.

Where the work is bigger than the dysfunction.

I left because I loved them.

I left because I loved myself.

And sometimes, in this complicated, human, imperfect world of education — that is the bravest thing you can do.