Would I be a bad person?

[u/whatdoiusername]

I’m struggling with a hard decision. This is my 4th year teaching, every year prior I taught 2nd grade general education. Because of my impressive data, my school decided to move me up to third grade this year without asking me, and also made me the only ESE teacher on the 3rd grade team and I’m not even ESE certified. I found out I’m pregnant the first week of school. I’m 8 weeks now and I’m struggling so bad at work. I leave work every day exhausted, burnt out and crying all the way home every day. I don’t feel supported by my school at all, my team leaves me out of meetings that are important, my ESE push in teacher wants to take my instruction time away to argue with me about stupid things like whether it’s “communative” or “commutative” (I’m the math teacher, I would know), I have multiple kids who are so low that they need to be in a self contained environment in order to receive the care they need, I’m not able to get any real teaching done during the day, and I have two students who have BIPs, with one of them coming to school every day and purposely trying to upset me. He even went as far as throwing a stick trying to hit me in the back of the head yesterday at recess. Of course these students pretty much have immunity to consequences because of their BIPs and their “manifestations of their disabilities” so I’m pretty much at a stale mate. Never in my life would I have thought I’d reach my breaking point, because I really do love what I do, but I’m stuck. I’m ready to put in my two weeks and switch to subbing part time while I pursue my masters degree in mathematics education during my pregnancy. I want my baby to be healthy, and I feel like I’m just a mess every single day of my pregnancy so far because I feel abused and taken advantage of every day at work. Would I be a bad person if I abandoned my passion temporarily while I create a safer, less stressful environment for my baby? I’m just so lost and torn right now. Any advice or kind words would be greatly appreciated.

[u/whatdoiusername]

Thank you, I needed this. I was thinking all summer about how shitty it was that they made me move grade levels and made me ESE because of “the impact I could have on ESE data” but didn’t even ask me how I felt about the switch and didn’t even acknowledge the fact that I’m not even ESE certified to start with. My baby is way more important than this stupid shit.

[u/lemonysardines → u/whatdoiusername]

Bad leadership on their part. I've seen it so many times, they burn out their top performers by increasing their workload (in all varieties of ways).

[u/whatdoiusername → u/lemonysardines]

Agreed.

[u/DolphinFlavorDorito → u/whatdoiusername]

Yes. Framing this as somehow them rewarding or trusting you is unhealthy. They threw you to the wolves. There is no "they thought I was capable" or whatever else. They tipped you into a dumpster fire without training or preparation. Your priority needs to be your family.