I‘m a first year teacher (high school) in a relatively large city. I recently graduated from one of the most rigorous sped programs in the state, and felt confident that I could handle the stress of my first year. I was wrong. I came into a position where I do half pull-out courses and half life skills (life skills is my dream position). None of my classes are the same subject, and I have no co-teachers. I was told to just “do whatever I want” when it came to curriculum, and just dig something out of our resource library. During first semester, I was physically assaulted by a random student while trying to protect one of my own students. I had a concussion and had to go to the ER. This assault happened even though we‘re supposed to have hall monitors who make sure kids aren’t roaming the halls. Administration did not tell staff about the incident until I pushed them to send a generic email. I coasted through the rest of the semester, hoping this one would be better. Right before break, I found out that I was not going to get the life skills position next year that I had been told that I would very likely get, instead maaaaybe getting a self-contained cross-cat room. I came in yesterday and on lunch duty, just looked around and realized, “I hate this job”. I have had to settle for mediocrity as the standard here and abandon so many of my morals and lessons I learned about best practices. My students have made no progress. I feel like I somehow failed, but I also know that this is on administration and our education system as a whole. I take solace in that I can’t see myself doing any other career, I still have a passion to teach, but not here and like this. I’ve already started looking at other sped openings in the elementary level. On top of all of this, my mom has two auto-immune disorders that make it harder for her to fight against covid. She did get her booster and vaccines, but she still is more likely to get seriously ill if she catches it. I feel a deep anger when I see kids not wearing their masks properly, especially with omicron now. I don’t care if they get mad at me for sending them out, I don’t want to get my mom sick. I’m trying not to give up and give my kids a chance to succeed this semester, but part of me just doesn’t care anymore.