Assistant Principal’s “Heartless” Response to Teacher’s Refusal to Work Extra Hours Goes Viral

In March of 2023, USA Today reported that the number of teachers quitting their jobs has reached a record high. And if you or anyone you know is an educator, it isn't difficult to understand why.

While there are definitely some states, and counties within those states that pay teachers much better than others, there are many areas of the country where being a teacher is a raw deal.

In some areas, teachers' already low salaries still receive hefty deductions from health coverage plans (that often offer great coverage) and union fees, that, depending on where you live, don't seem too concerned with taking care of the teachers that are forking over a portion of their paychecks.

It's also not uncommon for teachers to work well past their scheduled hours, with many classroom instructors either bringing their work home with them or staying after hours in school to put in grades or complete other administrative work that was impossible to fulfill during their pre-ordained times.

For this teacher, whose story is going viral on Reddit, she was regularly working 20+ additional hours a week, aka, another part-time job.

According to her partner, @ETsuncle, who wrote about their wife's decision to stop putting in so many extra hours every week in a viral Reddit post uploaded to the site's r/antiwork sub, she was doing it "outside of paid hours."

OP wrote that their wife teaches 5th-grade students in the Washington, D.C. area and has been "dealing with burnout" due to putting in so many hours.

She decided to discuss the matter with him, her union representative, and her therapist before ultimately putting a stop to all of the extra time she was putting in.

As it turns out, however, the Assistant Principal wasn't appreciative of the fact that OP's wife stopped putting in so much extra time and had a 2-hour meeting with them after classes were done for the day to discuss the matter.

The meeting was centered around OP's wife's performance, and after she explained her decision to stop putting in the extra 20 hours or so each week, the administrator simply responded by saying: "We can tell."

OP warned others to ultimately "stay away" from the profession as they called it "toxic." But many Redditors in the comments section said that this isn't an easy choice for many, as a lot of people ultimately decided to become teachers because they truly enjoy education and helping children succeed.

Others said that it may be easier for some, in corporate jobs, to simply reduce the amount of hours that they're working, with teaching there's an added layer of guilt because children are ultimately the ones who suffer at the end of the day.

Another Reddit user in the comments section wrote that they quit teaching due to constantly being stressed all the time, much like this TikToker who left the teaching profession to go and work at Costco instead.