After having quit my Culinary Arts teaching job last October over issues related to student misbehavior, part of me has felt lost. I had after all, been a teacher for 32 years. Although I briefly considered other areas of employment that were offered by headhunters that included a job as a saucier (sauce making chef) in the food service industry or becoming a corporate trainer for teaching salesmen about the investment portfolios that their financial company sold, neither of these occupations really appealed to me.

68% of my adult life has been spent in education. Although I was traumatized by the behavior of the students at my last job and was deeply hurt when after having sought help from my building administration, my immediate supervisor told me to either “step up” my class management or “quit”, I couldn’t emotionally embrace the idea of not teaching even though I felt broken as a Culinary Arts instructor.

After a number of false starts regarding what I would do for employment, I subsequently entered Nevada State University’s IRC (interim route to certification) for special education program. My original plan was to take two classes in the Spring and three classes over the summer so that when combined with other classes I have previously taken, I would be within six credits of program completion and could, per a Nevada Department of Education certification ruling, could then apply in August for a provisional teaching certificate in special education with an endorsement for autism.

While I still plan on doing this, a recruiter for a charter school reached out to me via Linkedin. “Have you ever considered going back into elementary education?” she asked during our virtual interview last Thursday.

I explained that my elementary teaching certificate had expired and that the only way to reactivate it would be to go to Texas to take a state test.

“Ah,” replied the recruiter who wagged a finger on the screen. “We’re a charter school and different rules apply. With your current certification in Culinary Arts, you could teach an elementary class. We have an immediate opening for a fourth grade teacher.”

I thought about it. In speaking further with the recruiter I learned the following:

  • Since I had not yet begun drawing on my state pension, working for this school would allow me to continue to contribute to my retirement savings.
  • The school offered me a higher salary than what I had previously earned through the Clark County School District. Whereas at the time of my initial employment, CCSD would only credit me for 7 prior years of teaching experience and a Master’s degree, the charter school offered to credit me with all 32 prior years of teaching experience as well as my graduate degree.
  • Unlike CCSD which has frozen automatic step increases for teacher salaries, the charter school has a progressive salary schedule. While I did not ask how often these step increases would occur, my prior years of experience have taught me that most public schools offer a cost of living adjustment and an increase in salary for each year that one works for that employer. In contrast, since CCSD has frozen step increases, the only pay raises we ever got were those that had been negotiated by our union.
  • The charter school also had much better private medical insurance than CCSD which has medical coverage that is overseen by the teachers’ union. To give you an idea of how bad this insurance was, I didn’t have my final medical bills from 2021 paid by this union managed health care until October of 2023. The failure of the health provider to promptly pay my medical bills resulted in a down checked credit rating through no fault of my own. I also developed a phobia about answering phones because I was getting daily and sometimes twice daily calls from debt collection agencies who did not understand or particularly care that my outstanding bills should have been paid for by Teachers’ Health Trust.

Although working for this charter school will entail a three hour daily commute, the fact that I drive a hybrid means that I can get 54 miles to the gallon. The 90 minute drive going to work will give me time to metaphorically don my game face and to mentally review the day’s events. The drive going home will give me time to decompress.

After agreeing to apply for the 4th grade position, I was scheduled for a virtual interview with the principal. She hired me within 15 minutes of having completed the interview.

I took the job. How could I not?

In taking this job, I have moved from the 88% of adults with autism who are not employed to the 12% who are.

In the meanwhile, I am continuing to work towards special education certification.

While it has been incredibly restful to not have had to have masked over the past nine months, the sad reality is that we don’t live in an autistic friendly world. To better blend in with my neurotypical colleagues, I will need to suppress my autistic tendencies via masking. This means that I will have to force myself to make eye contact, to engage in small talk, to tolerate physical contact via shaking hands and slaps on the back, to teach in a brightly lit classroom, and to hide my self-stimming by either shoving my hands deep into my pockets or holding them behind me while my fingers twitch.

Although research (Cage and Troxell-Whitman, 2019) has found that autistic adults who mask have higher levels of stress and anxiety than those who do not, the alternative to not masking would be my continued unemployment and the slow drain of my bank accounts. Insofar as my cats and I have long become accustomed to having a roof over our heads, beds to sleep on, and food to eat; I don’t think any of us would enjoy being homeless.

The possibility of homelessness is all too real for many people with autism. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, while the current poverty rate in the United States as of 2022 was 12.4%, the poverty rate for the disabled was 26%.

Given that people with autism are only employed at half the rate of other disabled people, I would imagine that homeless rates for autistic adults are correspondingly higher. The autistic sub-boards in Redditt are sadly filled with posts from former IT professionals, accountants, and engineers who burned out, exhausted their savings, and then lost their homes.

I do not want to be one of these people. With a few more years invested in building my state pension, I should be able to retire in a few years.

In thinking about retirement, I am following the rule of 45. This rule states that in order to have minimum funding for retirement, one must have 45% of pre-taxed, pre-retirement income.

While this would not be a large amount given my teacher’s income compared to those of other professionals like IT personnel, accountants, and engineers; the balance of my retirement would be rounded out with social security as well as the interest from my investment portfolios.