Jessica! Thank for your truth, passion and insight. You are 100% right on all counts. I have spent my career in mental health working both in the institutions which have the same poor mangement, power trips, insanly low pay for workers who risk their physical and emotional safety everyday for a paycheck that doesn't nearly give them any semblance of a life outside of paying bills if even that. I started working as an independent speaker on the suggestion of a psychologist friend who worked in a middle school in suburban Westchester Cty NY. What I heard and witnessed was shocking. Classrooms had become mini psych wards in some respects. Teachers were not given the resources and supports they needed, their concerns went unheard and that was not for lack of trying on my part. The agenda was pure academics to not appear as a school that wasn't instilling the wisdom of which General shot the other General and won the war or innane treatises into the value of Geometry for later life. Yet childrens mental, emotional and spiritual development was not acknowledged. I thought when I was in school I will never use this "useless" information while I decended into depression and substance use and trauma from being raped at 16 by my first boss at my little part-time cashier job. I am still offering workshops to teachers in stress reduction, human behavior, social emotional learining for educators and students. Spring 2021 I offered classes and heard the same in every one. I heard exactly what you are saying and sad truth be told I heard the exact same things 20 years ago. Proof positive that collectively we talk a good game but are not invested in truly correcting the problems. Being in the mental health field, I like so many others have watched a revealing of the deep mental health issues many Americans struggle with during the last 5 years. The unconsciousness, ego/greed driven madness that is America driven by misinformation, lying, violence, easy access to guns etc...Many stay in the trenches as I am currently but often daydream about working on a film set for example. All of us have felt we are salmon swimming upstream and the current is a bitch. I am in my 50's with a wealth of personal experience and wisdom and of course the requisite degrees to back it up yet struggle to make my bills and I live a far from extravagant life. Like so many I also do my speaking work and have always had a painting/design business to make up the difference. When I was at an age where the validation was enough I pretended the pay didn't matter because I was "being of service" I have since "called BS" to my former employers and as it typically goes instead of listening to a legitimate issue that all of my colleagues shared I was systimatically black balled and eventually left those positions. I support your decision 100% but my hope is that you will continue to contribute to your field. Go speak "truth to power" you have the chops and the teachers need you!