If you are a teacher who is thinking about the wisdom of returning to your job this fall in the event that your system is going back in person or on a hybrid model, this episode is for you. Kitty Boitnott, Heart-Centered Career Transition and Job Search Coach talks about the questions that teachers are having to consider as they think about going back to school in the middle of a pandemic.
If you are a teacher with an underlying health condition or you worry about the possibility of picking up the virus and bringing it home to your family or your aging parents, you are not alone. These are serious considerations.
If you have to make the hard decision that you can't return to your district which means quitting your job, you may need help finding a new job or seeking out a career change. Contact Kitty for a complimentary Discovery Session at http://teachersintransition.com/calendar.
Contact Kitty by email at kittyboitnott@gmail.com.
Check out Kitty's website at TeachersinTransition.com (http://teachersintransition.com/)
If you are a teacher who is thinking about the wisdom of returning to your job this fall in the event that your system is going back in person or on a hybrid model, this episode is for you. Kitty Boitnott, Heart-Centered Career Transition and Job Search Coach talks about the questions that teachers are having to consider as they think about going back to school in the middle of a pandemic.
If you are a teacher with an underlying health condition or you worry about the possibility of picking up the virus and bringing it home to your family or your aging parents, you are not alone. These are serious considerations.
If you have to make the hard decision that you can't return to your district which means quitting your job, you may need help finding a new job or seeking out a career change. Contact Kitty for a complimentary Discovery Session at http://teachersintransition.com/calendar.
Contact Kitty by email at kittyboitnott@gmail.com.
Check out Kitty's website at TeachersinTransition.com (http://teachersintransition.com/)
Are you a teacher who's feeling stressed out and overwhelmed? Do you worry that you're feeling symptoms of burnout or are you sure you've already gotten there? Have you started to dream of doing some other kind of job or perhaps pursuing a whole different career, but you don't know what else you're even qualified to do? You don't know how to start a job search. You just feel stuck. If that sounds like you, I promise you're not alone. My name is Kitty Boitnott. I'm a career transition and job search coach and I specialize in helping burnt out teachers just like you deal not only with the stress and overwhelm of your day-to-day job, but to consider what other careers might be out there waiting for you. Join me for"Teachers in Transition." In some episodes, I'll be speaking to stress management techniques and how you can manage your stress on a day to day basis. In other episodes, I'll be talking about career transition. What tools do you need to be successful in a job search when you're moving from one career into a totally different track? These are questions that you need answers to and I can help you find those answers. My name is Kitty Boitnott. Welcome to"Teachers in Transition." Welcome back to episode 70 of"Teachers in Transition," the Podcast, and the YouTube channel. My name is Kitty. Boitnott the owner of Boitnott Coaching,, LLC, and the founder of"Teachers in Transition." If you've listened to any of my podcast or watched any of my YouTube channel in the past, you know that I alternate topics each week, one week I talk about stress and stress management and stress relief strategies. And the alternating week, I talk about career transition because I am an experienced and trained career transition and job search coach. I specialize in working with burnt-out teachers who are ready to make a change, leave the classroom and look for something more fulfilling and frankly, more fun. But right now I am thinking that I may be speaking to teachers who are not burnt out, but are seeking solutions to what to do about the question of, do I go back this fall? If my school district is going back for a hybrid or full immersion into the building, as opposed to a virtual option that might be available to some teachers, and I've already started talking to people, I've started hearing from individuals who have made the hard decision that they are not going back. Even their school division is opening up and going back in person. And they're, they're making these hard decisions because they have their own health concerns to be worried about. Um, one individual that I spoke with last week revealed to me that he's diabetic. Another was concerned more about the protocols that she felt would not be followed and would not be in place. And she's of an age that she felt like going back would put her at risk. Um, another has already been non we knew for whatever reason. So there are people who are contacting me now who don't necessarily fit the profile of the burnout teacher, but instead they are the teacher who is struggling with the decision. Do I go back and potentially put myself and my family at risk or do I quit and hope that I can find something else and to find something else is the trick because in the middle of a pandemic, so many businesses are struggling with trying to keep their doors open and keep their current employees on the payroll, much less bring on new people. So it is a dilemma and we are facing it together as a society, as a country, um, frankly, with mixed messaging from people who should be offering comfort and support and leadership and where we're just not experiencing that on a consistent basis. Many governors are making decisions for political reasons as opposed to health reasons. Uh, all of this pandemic business has been politicized, which is ridiculous because this is not a political matter. It is a public health matter. And whether or not we open schools should not be driven by politics or by red and blue or liberal or conservative. It should simply be driven by what's in the best interest of public health. And that can vary, depend on depending on where you live, what state you live in. If you are in a state where the numbers are raging, and there are more people who have the virus and more people who are succumbing to its various complications, then it may not even be an issue. It may be that your school division has already made the decision to at least start the school year virtual, but other schools were making other decisions. And again, I'm not sure where all of the decision making is coming from or how people are coming to the conclusions that they're coming to. But at the end of the day, none of that really matters. What matters is what you decide to do, depending on your specific situation. I've talked to a mother of a young child who was terrified of the thought of going back, picking the virus up and bringing it back to her child who has already had a respiratory issue. Um, before the age of 19 months, she's freaking out about putting herself at risk and then potentially putting a baby at risk. These are not things that people should be asked to do, but here we are, people are being forced to make certain decisions. So here's my message for you today. I can't tell you, no one can tell you what you should do. If you are already over the age of 60 and yet not quite ready to retire, you may need to rethink that. You may need to take a look, talk to your financial advisor, consider whether early retirement as a possibility for you. That was the option I took eight years ago, and we weren't even in the midst of a pandemic for my own reasons. I decided to take early retirement because I knew that going back to teaching middle school, English was not an option for me. So that was the decision I made. I took early retirement and I started this business, not everybody's in the position of starting your own business. However, so some people will need to be looking for alternative lines of work. And for those of you who were in your twenties and thirties, and still you, maybe you have an underlying health issue that makes it impossible for you to feel good about going back and putting yourself at risk, or perhaps you are a mid, mid age, middle age, and you are caretaking for your elderly parents. And you're concerned about bringing the virus back to them. I mean, there's so many variables and so many different things you have to take into account here would be my bottom line. Frankly, if I were being asked to sign a contract that signed away any rights that I or my family had in the event that I should con contract COVID-19 during the course of my work. And there was no financial, um, rescue for me, I would, we'd be reluctant to sign that contract. I would feel like I was signing away my own rights. You know, I've heard on the news already this week, that teachers are thinking about writing their wills already. Well, that's always a good thing to do, but not something you should feel pressured to do because you are concerned about going back and potentially getting sick. That said, I guess it is possible that you can go back and be okay. I have, um, friends of mine who are essential workers. They've been working every day since the pandemic started and they're doing okay. They haven't picked it up. They're taking precautions, they're using, uh, all of the CDC guidelines that are keeping their hands washed and wearing a masks and staying socially distant, frankly. That's more possible in some situations than it is in others. It's hard for me as a teacher to imagine keeping social distance from the students that I used to teach, given that on a routine, I was the school librarian on a routine basis. They were tugging at my shirt or grabbing it. My waist, you know, teacher, teacher, they were needing all kinds of attention, close up and personal attention. In fact, I remember saying shortly after I started working that I never realized how many mouths I would be looking into because all of my second graders who were losing their teeth, what had made us see that they had lost a tooth. And there were times when I helped with the extraction of a loose tooth and wrapped it up for the child to take home for the tooth fairy. I don't know how you keep social distance from children who are needing your attention. And I know that the virtual situation is not ideal, but being in the midst of a pandemic is not ideal either. It is this the situation that we find ourselves in. However, so when I'm encouraging you to do, and the reason this falls into the guideline of this week, we're talking about career transition. If you are a teacher or any mid career professional, who is being asked to put your own health on the back burner, while you come back into your building your school situation, your office situation, where you may or may not be able to manage your environment, as well as you have been able to do at home, then you need to consider whether or not it's time to make a change. And if you do decide that it's time to make a change, my, my urgent requests for you would be to consider whether or not you can undertake your job search by yourself, or whether you need help. I think you probably need help that people who are calling me or finding out that, looking for a job on their own isn't as straight forward and simple as they thought it would be. And that's because looking for a new job in today's world is simply not as simple or straightforward as it used to be. And you need guidance. You need assistance, you need knowledge, you need help. And that's what I offer as well as many other career coaches who are available to help guide you through your job search. The first order of business for you though, is to decide based on the school decision, the school divisions decisions about how, and when you go back, you have to make a decision. Are you going to go back or not? And if not, what will you do instead, if you need to talk that through with someone who understands what working in a school is like, who understands the challenges of trying to keep your social distance from young children who may or may not understand the purpose of social distancing or wearing a mask all day, or keeping their hands clean, then contact me for a 20 minute complimentary consultation. I would be happy to speak with you about your particular situation, what challenge you may be facing and what you might need to decide to do to keep yourself safe and to keep your family safe. I can't tell you what to do, but I can perhaps help you talk it through Katie boitnott@gmail.com is my direct email address to make an appointment for 20 minute complimentary discovery session, no obligation simply set up an appointment for a 20 minute conversation, go to teachers and transition.com forward slash calendar that's teachers in transition.com forward slash calendar. Let's talk about your individual situation and help you to gain the clarity that you need about whether or not going back is what you need to do, or whether you need to be considering other alternatives. That's it for today, Katie Boitnott at Gmail. This is teachers in transition.com have a great week. So there you have it, an episode of teachers, and So there you have it, an episode of"Teachers in Transition." I hope you enjoyed the information and I hope you'll plan to come back. Please subscribe to"Teachers in Transition" so that you can be alerted of future episodes. And let me know if you have any questions or topics that you would like me to specifically cover in a future episode. I'm more than happy to help with individual questions as well. So email me at KittyBoitnott@BoitnottCoaching.com. If you are interested in finding a new career or just enjoying your life more, this is the place to start. Hi, I'm Kitty Boitnott and this is"Teachers in Transition."