After announcing my resignation, I finally figured out why I'm the only 20-something on staff.

I'm the youngest teacher at my school by a large margin. I'm 23 and the next-youngest teacher is 34. The vast majority of the teachers are over the age of 45. When I first got the job here, I thought, "Wow, everyone here has been teaching for a long time! This must be a great place to work if everyone wants to stay so long!"

It was not. This has been such a crappy year. The thought of leaving first crossed my mind in November. In December, I began to plan a transition out, but my original plan had a 3- to 4-year timeline. My timeline got shorter as I grew more and more frustrated, and by March I had decided not to return next school year.

I was so nervous to announce my resignation. All of my colleagues are seasoned veteran teachers who have devoted their whole adult lives to this, and here I was, eight months in, admitting that I couldn't hack it. I thought they were going to judge me so hard.

Yeah, I was wrong. Every response I've gotten so far has been something along the lines of, "Congrats! That's a great idea! If I were your age, I'd be leaving too." The teacher in the classroom across from mine told me about the "(name of district) seven", which is the idea that every teacher either leaves in their first seven years or stays until they're eligible for retirement. Apparently, seven years is the point at which you're high enough on the salary schedule that leaving becomes too expensive.

That explains so much. The fact that EVERY other teacher was over a decade older than me was absolutely not the green flag I thought it would be. The school isn't staffed by people who loved their job enough to stay there for 20 years. The school is staffed by people who feel stuck.