Teachers in Transition: Career Change and Real Talk for Burned-Out Teachers

The Guilt Economy of Teaching: From Vacation Packets to PetSmart and Beyond

• Vanessa Jackson • Episode 274

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Summary: 

Burned out? Buried in makeup work requests? Wondering what life could look like beyond the classroom? You’re in the right place.

This episode of Teachers in Transition is your triple shot of validation, strategy, and possibility.

🎒 Vanessa breaks down:

  • Why homework packets (especially for family vacations) are burnout fuel
  • A practical way to simplify packet prep using a Custom GPT for lesson planning
  • The hidden emotional toll of teacher guilt—and what we can learn from a PetSmart PR fail
  • Two clarity tools that help you start untangling your next chapter

🎯 If you’ve ever thought:

  • “I can’t do this another year.”
  • “I want more, but I don’t know what.”
  • “I’m exhausted, but I don’t want to waste my experience.”

…then this one’s for you.

 

🛠️ Resources Mentioned:

  • ✨ Build a Custom GPT for Lesson Planning
     Free guide to help you create your own AI assistant for fast, aligned lesson packets.
     👉 Download it here
  • 🔥 CLARITY Course + Full Teacher Transition Toolkit
     Step-by-step career transition help—designed by a teacher, for teachers.
     👉 Explore programs

 

🔍 Keywords:

teacher burnout, teacher exit strategy, makeup work hack, homework packets, custom GPT for teachers, AI lesson planning, career transition for educators, life after teaching, education career change, teacher guilt, how to leave teaching, clarity coaching for teachers

 

Ready to get real feedback on your resume and strategy? Book a free coaching session at TeachersinTransition.com. Your future is calling - and it doesn’t speak in acronyms.

 

👋 Connect with Vanessa:

 

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

Hi!  And Welcome back to another episode of Teachers in Transition with me, Vanessa Jackson! Today on the pod, we’re going to talk about the frustration of make-up work, a hack to maybe make that a little easier, and in our career transition/job search segment, we talk about the search for clarity that is absolutely necessary when leaving the classroom. 

Today I want to talk a little bit about those homework packets—specifically, the ones requested when a parent goes on vacation and their child will be out of school for a significant amount of time.

Now, I’m not saying every parent does this. Many do. But I can say that, out of all the packets I’ve ever prepared, I’ve maybe gotten two of them back. Two.

My personal favorite? A parent reached out to me before the school year even started—probably as soon as class lists were released—to say their child wouldn’t be in school for the first couple of weeks because of a vacation. And could I send all the work they’d be missing?

My response was, “Ma’am, I am not on contract yet, and I will not be doing that. The first couple of weeks of my program are some of the most important. They lay the foundation. I’ll do everything I can to catch your child up when he returns, but you may be setting him up for failure by prioritizing a vacation over the start of school.”

Another time, a child told me she’d be gone for six weeks—two of which were winter break. Still... six weeks. After I finished  blinking in confusion. I said, “Okay, here’s what we’re covering. I’ll exempt you from some of it.” I never saw her again for three months. They unenrolled. Reenrolled when they got back. All the work I put into preparing that packet? Wasted. Not just me, but all of the other teachers too. And of course, she came back behind.

And I don’t really know what some parents think. I’ve ranted about this on my personal social media page before, only to be told by friends that “school can never compare with the life experiences we provide.”

And as I’ve gotten older—and grumpier—my response has become: “I think you should homeschool your child if that’s how you feel.” That’s my new comeback for a lot of these crazy requests: “You sound like a fantastic candidate for homeschooling.”

Because some of these asks? They’re just inappropriate. If a parent doesn’t prioritize education, that’s their prerogative. But my parents never would’ve pulled us out of school for a week just for a trip. Education was everything. It was our job. It was out ticket to a better life. That kind of work ethic? It’s what serves me now as an entrepreneur and as a business owner. 

But when a child is going to be out and we’re required to create these homework packets? Oof! Part of the problem is that most districts don’t want us to use worksheets anymore.

Now, I’m not in the classroom anymore, so I have not test-driven this, but if you're in what I call a “sit-and-get” class—core classes like reading, math, science, social studies—there might be a way to use ChatGPT to create assignments aligned to your objectives. You could give the tool the learning goals and the vacation location and have it spit out a packet. Something alternate. Something quick. But honestly? It shouldn’t take any of our time.

We spend hours crafting engaging, dynamic lessons—like, almost like writing a novel. And what’s our reward? We send off those packets, and the kid returns with: “I didn’t have time to do it. Can I have more time?”

In hindsight, if I was still in the classroom, I think I’d offer the parent a choice, with a signature required in advance having them sign off on it:

  • Option A: I send the packet. Anything not turned in within 24 hours of return of coming back to school gets a zero. Period.
  • Option B: You take the vacation. I do my best to catch your child up when they return with sessions outside of the normal school. 

And honestly, I might make the post-vacation catch-up feel just inconvenient enough that parents stop asking. “Sure! When little Joey returns, I’ll stay after school for extra sessions to help him catch up.”

Because what we have to stop doing is giving parents the impression that a week’s worth of learning can be made up in 30 minutes while on a cruise.

In classes like band, orchestra, theater, shop—the value is in being there. Being part of the rehearsal, part of the community, this hands-on experience. A week off is a huge setback. No worksheet fixes that.

Now—important caveat—if a kid is legitimately sick, I turn myself into a pretzel trying to help. I’ll excuse work where I can, pare things down. Because I’ve been that kid.

I was Patient Zero in a measles outbreak in 1989. I was sick. I wasn’t doing anything. I had three days back at school before a band trip, and I had to be passing every class to go.

My teachers were saints. They let me bounce from class to class making things up. I got through it all—except the physics labs. I had missed (from all of my classes) four quizzes, two tests, three labs and who knows how many assignments. I had caught up on most of the assignments though.

I was exhausted—physically, mentally. And my physics teacher, God bless that man, took one look at me and said, “Let’s average your current grades. If that keeps you passing, we’ll let you go on the trip. You can make up the rest after.”

And that’s what we did. Those zeros were in the gradebook. Everything was legit. And I made it up afterwards.

Here’s the thing. Every teacher knows this secret. It’s not REALLY a secret. If a kid genuinely wants to make up the work and goes as far as they can to try, we’ll meet them at least halfway. We always do.

I bet you’re that kind of teacher, too.

And I bet -at least once - you’ve had your kindness taken advantage of. You’ve bent over backward for a kid only to have their parent go over your head, asking your admin for 15,000 more chances.

The kid doesn’t take them. Fails anyway. And you get pressured to change the grade.

If I were making a top ten list of reasons why teachers leave the profession? That would definitely be on it.

But This rolls nicely into our teacher hack – the Teacher Hack is a little trick that is designed to save you time, emotional labor, or just otherwise make your life easier somehow to create space in your day or your brain.  Today’s hack is directly to 
 to create a Packet Without the Panic

Sometimes you have to send the packet. So let’s make it easier.

Here’s how to packet without panic:

  • Use a Templated Cover Sheet with due dates, parent signature lines, and a clear disclaimer: "This packet is not a complete substitute for in-person instruction."
  • Stick to Review Only: Don’t give them anything new. Keep it simple. Prioritize practice.  Better yet, if you have something related to endless array standardized testing that’s required in so many areas, use one of those review packets. 
  • Create a Default Packet Per Quarter (or per year): Save your future self some effort by building one solid go-to packet 
  • Test Drive an AI Shortcut – I have free instructions to build your custom GPT for lesson planning that you can download from my webpage. One of the steps is to upload a document that includes the standards and objectives for your subject and grade level. Just take the current standards & objectives, the students intended destination location and have it spit out a little project they can do.  Bam.  5 minutes or less (or maybe longer if you have to wait for the copy machine.)  Or better yet – send it as a PDF to the parents.  Put it all on the parent.
     
     

And let me take a seemingly wild diversion here and I want to talk quickly about the PetSmart trick-or-treating disaster from this past Sunday, October 26. 

If you missed it, PetSmart had really been promoting trick-or-treating for pets in their stores. There were so many videos—just the cutest little puppers ever—dressing up and going to PetSmart, only to find... a folding card table with a small bucket of dried jerky treats or something. It was really just very underwhelming for the pet parents.

Now, we could argue the brilliance of that strategy from a business perspective because the dogs didn’t necessarily care. I mean, they got a treat and a RIDE in the CAR. But the pet parents of those dogs? They felt guilty. And what did they do? They probably upped PetSmart’s sales for the day by buying something to make up for it. And of course there was nothing for pets who were not a dog.  Spoiler alert – not all pets are dogs.  MY pets are dogs… 

But that’s not even the point.

One employee commented on one of the many, many posts about this situation, and what they said stuck with me. 

Corporate didn’t allow extra staff to be in stores to cover the trick or treat stations.  Corporate didn’t allow for budget to staff that event. Corporate didn’t allow them to write off as a loss more than four small bags of treats. Corporate Petsmart set them up to fail.

So yes, a few PetSmart stores apparently did a good job. And clearly, that means either their store manager or their employees probably forked that money out of their own pockets—or they did something shady with their store's profit-loss statement. – Actually some employees have gone on record as saying that they bought things from their own money. 

And what’s interesting to me is the dichotomy between those two groups of stories. People were praising the stores that clearly went above and beyond—stores where people most likely spent their own money. Meanwhile, the stores that did exactly what corporate set them up to do? They were being trounced.

And as teachers, we’ve heard this song before! We know this exact same setup. We are set up for this kind of thing all the time.

The district doesn’t provide. The state doesn’t provide. And we’re told the teacher should provide.

With the current government shutdown here in the United States and the looming end of SNAP benefits (Those benefits are food helping people to have access to have food) , people are out here suggesting that teachers buy more food for their student pantries as if teachers aren’t already overspent and overwhelmed. Let me tell you something—the correct move is that the community should be buying food for those pantries. Not the teachers. Certainly not ONLY the teachers. 

So if you're in that position, I want to hear this you this clearly: if you cannot afford to stock extra food in your classroom, you are not alone. And it shouldn’t rest on your shoulders. Reach out to your community on the local Facebook page or your church or synagogue if you have one. Ask for help. Make them just as responsible for your student pantry as the world wants to make you. It is not all on you.

I’ve said it before, and I will say it again, probably 5,000 more times: You cannot love the students out of the bad situation that the state and now the federal government is placing so many of them in. 

Now—back to PetSmart. Dogs love treats. They don’t care where they come from. And honestly, it’s easier to see how wrong it is when we remove it from the classroom and put in a store filled with cute little doggos in costumes.

Because what this really is? This is a metaphor for what’s happening to teachers every single day.

This is the guilt economy in action. And it’s breaking us.

Let’s take a breath.

If this episode so far has you nodding your head, clenching your jaw, fighting back tears, or staring blankly at your laptop wondering how it all got this bad - you’re not alone. Not even close. 

And it might be time to get radically honest with yourself:

You can’t keep doing this this way. That doesn’t make you dramatic. Or lazy. Or “not cut out for teaching.” It makes you clear-eyed and realistic.
 
 I talk about 5 phases or steps out of the classroom – Decide, Clarify, Build, Refine, And Attract. I am going to talk moew about Clarify today. This is where you are looking around and deciding who you are when you leave teaching.

Because clarity doesn’t start with a job application—it starts with an internal reckoning. A moment where you realize: this version of this job, this version of your life... isn’t sustainable. And no one’s coming to fix it.

In the CLARITY phase of the Teachers in Transition process, we slow things down. We create space to breathe, to grieve what we lose, and to start asking new questions - ones the system never gave you time to ask.  I find it important to grieve.  Most teachers leaving the education field aren’t leaving because it’s their first choice. They leave because they are left with no other choice. I still miss teaching.  I just find I can do more good for the world of education outside of it. 
 
But it’s important to stop and ask questions and to take the time to properly reflect upon the answers. 

Like:

  • What do I actually want from my work?
  • What would it feel like to be appreciated, not just tolerated?
  • Who am I when I’m not endlessly lesson-planning in my sleep?
  • What makes me feel fulfilled?

This phase isn’t about resumes or rebranding yet. It’s about reconnection—to your values, your voice, your desires. Because you can’t pivot into purpose when you’re still stuck in survival.
 
And if you’re feeling particularly brave, you want to break each question down further using a powerful technique called the 5 Whys.  When you get an answer to What do I actually want from my work.  Take that answer and ask yourself why that is your answer to get a second answer. You ask yourself why 5 times and drill down to what feels real to you. This can be hard to do by yourself. Give me a call if you want to drill own on these answers. 

So let’s begin with two tiny-but-mighty clarity tools:

 

1. Do a “No More Walmart” Audit
Before the pandemic, I used to use the phrase “Hey, I’m not Walmart, I’m not open 24/7.  I require sleep to be this friendly.”  Walmart isn’t 24/7, so it’s a bit of moot point now, but the analogy holds. Business realized that they didn’t need to be open all the time. 
Ask yourself: Where in your life are you still acting like you're open 24/7?

  • Are you answering emails at night to “be a team player”?
  • Are you giving up your prep to cover for someone else - for free?
  • Are you taking on extra clubs, committees, or crises because no one else will?

You get to set hours. You get to close shop. You get to stop giving away your power in the name of “being nice.”  Drawing boundaries is one thing, and holding them is another.  That’s a whole different discussion!  But we’re going to get started on it: 

Make a list: three places where you can say no. Then practice it. Even once.  It’s empowering.  You can even soften the ‘no’ with words like “Alas, I cannot” or “unfortunately…[insert your out here]”
 
 A toddler knows the power of No.  That’s why they use it so emphatically when they discover it.  You can use it too. 

2. Rewrite Your Job Description—But Don’t Use the ‘Teacher’ lens
This one can be tricky.  Envision what you’re doing and strip every education word out of it. You can’t use the word student or lesson, or test or classroom…

You are so much more than your job title. Let’s prove it.

Instead of:

“I write lesson plans and manage a classroom.”

Try:

“I design and facilitate learning experiences for diverse audiences, using differentiated strategies to meet performance benchmarks and engagement goals.”

Boom. Corporate HR just perked up.

You don’t need to “start over.” You need to start translating.

Because you're not just qualified. I’d argue you're over-qualified for half the jobs you think you’re not allowed to apply for.

You are not stuck.
 You are not broken.
 You are just too close to see your skills clearly.

And that’s what this phase is for—flipping the lights on. So you can stop apologizing for being exhausted... and start exploring what’s next from a place of power and knowledge.

if you've been nodding along, whispering “yep, that’s me”—then it might be time to take the next step.

The CLARITY course inside Teachers in Transition was built for this exact moment. Not when you’ve got it all figured out—but when you're finally ready to stop surviving and start exploring what else is possible.

Inside the course, you’ll learn how to:

  • Pinpoint what’s draining you (and what lights you back up)
  • Name your strengths in language that transfers beyond the classroom
  • Reconnect with your values so your next chapter actually feels like you and a version of you that you’ve probably been missing for a long time. 

You can grab the CLARITY course as a standalone, or get it bundled as part of the full Teacher Transition Toolkit— that is my signature, step-by-step roadmap to help you move from burned out to clear, confident, and career-ready.

Everything’s available right now on the site. The link is in the show notes or just navigate over to TeachersinTransition.com
 The tools are ready. The shift is waiting.
 And you don’t have to do this alone.

Come take the first step.
 You’ve already done the hardest part—getting honest.

There are a variety of ways to get in touch with me all listed in the show notes, but the important thing to know is that I am ready to help. This is the time of you year when you hear about companies laying off more and more people so the cash flow looks strong on the annual reports for stockholders in January. It’s a hard time of year. But it’s a great time of year to really dig into clarity and the things that matter. When you are aligned to your purpose and your passion, you’re more likely to find what you need.  And remember – the best time to start your job search or career transition was six months ago. The next best time is now. 

*******

Email me at Vanessa@teachersintransition.com
Leave a voicemail or text at 512-640-9099
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