This Started With Teachers I Couldn't Stop Thinking About
My name is Kim. I spent 28 years in education — five years teaching elementary school, five years in middle school classrooms, and eighteen years as a school leader including ten years as an elementary assistant principal, three years as a middle school assistant principal, and five years as an elementary principal.
I know what teachers carry because I spent nearly three decades standing beside them.
What I Saw
The teachers I worked with were extraordinary. They loved their students deeply. They showed up every single day with more patience, creativity, and heart than anyone outside of education fully understands.
I watched those same teachers grow exhausted under pressures that had nothing to do with their ability or their love for the work. And I watched them stay anyway. Because they loved it. Because leaving felt like abandoning the very students who needed them most.
Why I Left
There came a point when I understood something difficult. The barriers my teachers were facing were not ones I could remove from where I stood. I fought for what they needed — consistently, persistently, and with everything I had. But some walls don't move from the inside.
So I made the hardest decision of my career. I left.
I grieved that decision for a long time. I still carry those teachers with me. But leaving taught me something I couldn't have learned any other way.
If I couldn't protect teachers from within the system, I could support them in protecting themselves.
What I Know About Teachers
Teachers are not looking for someone to tell them to do less. They are not looking for a bubble bath and a candle and a reminder to practice gratitude. They are looking for something real — something that actually accounts for the weight they carry and gives them an honest way to put some of it down.
Most teachers don't want to leave. The narrative right now is that teachers are walking out and never looking back. But that has not been my experience. Most teachers love this work. They love the students. They love what happens in that room when everything comes together.
They just want to stay in teaching without losing themselves in the process.
That distinction matters enormously to me. After the Bells was not built to push teachers out of the classroom. It was built to help them stay — in a way that is healthier, more sustainable, and more honest about what the job actually costs.
A Note From Kim
I built this for the teachers I couldn't stop thinking about after I left.
I built it for every teacher who has ever cried in their car before walking into school. For every teacher who lies awake replaying a conversation they can't change. For every teacher who gives everything inside those walls and arrives home with nothing left.
You are not weak. You are not failing. You are carrying something real — and you deserve real support for carrying it.
After the Bells exists because I believe teaching can be sustainable. Not easy. Not perfect. But sustainable — in a way that lets you keep doing the work you love without disappearing inside it.
Outside of this work I am a wife and a mom of three. I know what it means to try to show up fully in multiple places at once — and how hard it is to pour back into yourself when everyone around you needs something. That is part of why this work matters so much to me. Teachers deserve to come home. Really come home.
I'm glad you're here.
— Kim 🌿
Founder, After the Bells
Teacher • School Leader • 28 Years in Education
Life is fuller when you protect it.
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