What Jobs Are In Education Outside Of The Classroom? A Former Teacher’s Practical Guide
The rain was dripping off the awning of our local Starbucks, turning the sidewalk outside gray, when Lila stirred her oat latte and said she was done. Done with 6 a.m. lesson planning, done with 30 unread parent emails by 9 a.m., done with crowd control after lunch and standardized testing prep every spring. After seven years teaching 2nd grade, she’d turned in her resignation two days earlier, and she was convinced her only options were to start over in a whole new field or go back to school for a completely different degree. She twisted the frayed education department keychain she’d had since college and said, “All I know how to do is teach. There’s nothing else in education besides being in the classroom, right?”
I get that. That’s what I thought too, when I left my 4th grade classroom 10 years ago, burnt out after my third year. Back then, I assumed the only step up from classroom teacher was principal, a job that required even more night meetings and administrative work I never wanted. But over the past decade, I’ve watched dozens of former colleagues and friends build great careers in education that never require standing in front of a daily class. I leaned across the coffee-stained table and started listing the ones I knew best, starting with the job I did for two years right after leaving the classroom: instructional coach.
As an instructional coach, I worked with new teachers in my district, helping them plan lessons that worked for their specific group of kids, talk through tricky parent conversations, and figure out how to de-escalate conflict when a kid was having a bad day. I’d observe one or two classes a week, then sit down with the teacher for 30 minutes to talk through what worked. I only led one group session a week for district professional development, and I never had to grade a stack of 25 math papers on a Sunday night. Most districts don’t require a new degree for this role, just a few years of classroom experience, which means you can make the switch without going back to school full-time.
Javi, a former 3rd grade teammate of mine, left the classroom six years ago to become a curriculum writer for a local nonprofit that makes free reading materials for Title I elementary schools. He’d spent years adjusting generic pre-made curricula to fit his class of mostly multilingual learners, so when the nonprofit posted the job, he applied even though he’d never written full curriculum before. He took a free 6-week introductory course on curriculum design through Coursera to add to his resume, and got the job three weeks later. Now he tests new units with small groups of kids once a month, but his days are mostly spent writing, collaborating with other former teachers, and making sure materials are actually accessible for the kids that need them most. He still gets to use all that knowledge he built about how kids learn to read, he just doesn’t do it 40 hours a week in a crowded classroom.
Sarah, a former middle school math teacher I met through a district workshop, switched to product management for an ed tech company that makes math practice apps. She’d spent years complaining that the apps the district bought were either too easy for advanced kids or too hard for kids who needed extra support, so when she decided to leave the classroom, she reached out to the company directly to ask if they needed people with classroom experience. She did a 3-month part-time bootcamp for new product managers, and the company reimbursed her for the entire cost once she was hired. Now she spends her days talking to current teachers, testing new features, and making sure the app aligns with what kids actually need to learn in middle school. She says she uses her knowledge of how 7th graders struggle with fractions every single day, she just never has to do after-school hall duty anymore.
Lila was scribbling all this down in her notebook, pausing when I mentioned family engagement coordinator, a role I’d seen open up in our district a few months earlier. That role works for the district, planning family nights, connecting parents with resources like food banks or free tutoring, and helping schools figure out how to reach parents who work full time and can’t come to daytime events. Lila had always organized the school’s annual book fair and fall festival, and she loved talking to parents after school about how to support their kids at home. “That sounds like something I’d actually enjoy,” she said, tapping her pen on the page.
The thing no one tells you in ed school is that most of these roles prioritize your classroom experience over any fancy new certification. If you’re a teacher thinking about leaving the classroom, you don’t have to throw away all the years you spent learning how kids learn. You can stay in education, just adjust what your day looks like. For parents, it’s also useful to know these roles exist: these are the people behind the scenes that shape your kid’s education, from the curriculum they use to the resources you can access as a family, that you’ll probably never meet at a back-to-school night.
A month after that coffee date, Lila texted me a screenshot of an interview invite for a family engagement coordinator role at a nearby elementary district. She hasn’t gotten an offer yet, and she says she’s still nervous about making the switch, but she doesn’t feel stuck anymore. I ran into Javi at the grocery store last week, and he complained about a long board meeting he had to sit through the day before. Then he grinned and said he still hasn’t graded a spelling test in four years, and he hasn’t regretted leaving the classroom once. There’s no one right path for people who love working with kids and education, just a lot more options than most of us are told about early on.
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