The Shattered Cup: The Heartbreaking Choice to Walk Away from My Autism Classroom

I’m Felicia, founder of Something to Say ABA. In this series, I’m sharing the path to opening my neuroaffirming clinic. If you missed the deeply personal story of the five years my husband and I spent raising our foster son, you can read Part 4 here. Today, we jump to the perfect storm of a global pandemic, and the heartbreaking moment I realized I had to walk away from the classroom...

Navigating An Autism Classroom During a Global Pandemic: Exposing the Cracks and Systemic Failures

Attempting to bring the individualized support of an autism classroom to a 13-inch screen, while confined to the couch during the pandemic lockdown.

For as long as I could remember, I had envisioned myself exactly where I was: standing in my very own classroom, teaching students with autism. I had spent years learning to look past labels, fiercely believing that every individual deserves to be seen, understood, and challenged to reach their full potential. I was ready to be an advocate to a new set of students closer to home. Instead, I encountered a painful masterclass in how easily a system can fail the very individuals it was built to protect.

It was a perfect, terrifying storm. We were navigating the early days of a global pandemic, I was expecting my first baby, and at home, my husband and I were raising our foster son, who also has ASD. Life felt like a high-wire act without a net. Yet, while the personal juggling act was intense, it was the professional landscape over the two years I spent in that local autism classroom that would ultimately break my heart—and rebuild my entire career.

This card was supposed to be our ticket to relief. Instead, it was just the entry pass back into a building where untested protocols and administrative disconnect were waiting for us.

When the pandemic forced us into remote learning, it was soul-crushing. The hands-on, individualized support my students desperately needed simply did not exist through a computer screen. When we finally returned to the building, the relief I expected never came. Instead, it felt as though our students were being treated as an afterthought—guinea pigs for rigid, untested protocols handed down by a disconnected administration. The expectations were completely inflexible, failing to account for the actual human beings in our room and putting everyone at risk.

The absurdity of the system, pushed to its breaking point by pandemic-era staff shortages and the compounding chaos of COVID, became glaringly obvious on a daily basis. In one instance, our classroom was so severely understaffed that a student, dysregulated and unsupervised, pulled the fire alarm. The administration's response wasn't to look at the dangerous lack of support that led to the incident, or the massive stress the pandemic was placing on our kids. Instead, they handed down a "write-up": the student was "required" to write a five-paragraph essay about why we don't pull fire alarms. This child was minimally verbal and could barely write his own name. The punishment wasn't just inappropriate; it was a flashing neon sign that the people in charge fundamentally did not understand—or care to understand—the students they were supposed to be serving.

Day after day, I would come home utterly depleted, my frustration bleeding into my evenings with my husband and our foster son. I was running on fumes, trying to give my all to my family while fighting a daily, losing battle at work.

Screaming Into a Void: The Heartbreak of a Broken Special Education System

This isn't just a mess; it is the physical manifestation of a systemic failure. This is what happens when severe understaffing meets vulnerable students in crisis.

The true breaking point came when I returned from maternity leave. I walked back into a classroom that was still so severely understaffed it was physically unsafe. The Board Certified Behavior Analyst (BCBA) who supported our room and I looked at each other and knew we couldn't do it anymore. We made the terrifying decision to refuse to operate the classroom until safe staffing ratios were met. It was a desperate plea for help. Yet, the district only moved when panicked parents began to make a fuss. The system didn't care about our professional alarms; it only cared about PR. I realized then that I was dying on a hill that wasn't going to change. I had spent my life advocating for those who are overlooked, but I was suddenly trapped in a machine that was built to overlook them.

When the pandemic hit, it felt like the whole world suddenly noticed the massive cracks in our systems. Despite the very long way our country still has to go—and the fact that too many people are still hitting the snooze button—for a minute there while we sat quarantined in our homes, the fragility of our safety nets and the deep inequities in our society were front-page news. While most of these vital, overdue conversations rightfully centered around racial inequalities and power imbalances, sitting in that under-resourced classroom taught me is that systemic failure doesn't limit itself to just one marginalized group; when a machine is broken, it fails the most vulnerable across the board.

Balancing strict social distancing mandates with the reality of an autism classroom was a losing battle. I was forced to bridge a physical divide with children who couldn't comprehend the virus, watching their needs be completely overshadowed by generic protocols.

The systemic injustices everyone else was discussing on the news were just a Tuesday in my classroom for my neurodivergent students. Punishing a minimally verbal child with an essay, or waiting for parents to complain before providing safe staffing levels—these weren't just administrative hiccups. Watching this happen to my students was a gut punch. It made me realize that our schools often just mirror society's worst habits, showing kids early on that their worth is tied to how well they fit into a tidy, predictable box. We love to throw around the word "inclusion," but when push comes to shove, systems almost always choose what's easy—like quiet compliance—over what actual, complex human beings need. When a system is built only for the "average" kid, the ones who don't fit that mold aren't just left behind—they are actively punished simply for being exactly who they are. I didn't just want empty buzzwords; I was fighting for an environment where safety, individualized support, and basic human dignity were the baseline.

The Shattered Cup: Battling Teacher Burnout and Deep Personal Grief

"When Mrs. Weber helps me." These were the moments that kept me fighting long after my cup was empty, and the exact reason walking away felt like a massive personal failure.

The decision to leave teaching was one of the most agonizing of my life. Walking away from the career I had built my identity around felt like a massive failure. I had always seen myself as the educator who stays, the one who fights the hard battles for the kids no one else understands. But worse than that shattered self-image was the crushing, suffocating guilt of leaving my students. If I leave, who is going to fight for them? Am I abandoning them to the very system I know is failing them? The thought made me physically sick. I laid awake countless nights, running through scenarios, trying to find a way to stay and survive.

But I had to face a hard truth: you cannot pour from an empty cup. And my cup wasn't just empty; it was shattered.

Taking a massive pay cut and leaving a stable career with a toddler at home was a terrifying gamble. Yet, looking at Ethan, the real risk wasn't walking away from the classroom—it was staying and letting the burnout consume the mother I wanted to be.

In the midst of this overwhelming professional burnout, my family was navigating a devastating personal loss. After five years, we were losing our foster son. He was returning to the care of his biological father—a situation where we were made unequivocally aware that we would not be included in his life moving forward. The grief of losing a child I had raised, compounded by the daily heartbreak in my classroom, left me with absolutely nothing left to give. But looking down at my now one-year-old, I knew I didn't have the luxury of giving up and resigning to the system. I would never be able to do that, and my baby was depending on me. I had to find a way to move forward, not just for my own sanity, but for my family's healing.

Sometimes You Have to Be a Quitter to Prosper: Rebuilding My Career in Clinical ABA Therapy

Leaving teaching wasn't just an emotional risk; it was a massive financial gamble. With a young toddler at home and the agonizing void left by our foster son's departure, I made the terrifying choice to take a significant pay cut. I stepped down to become a Registered Behavior Technician (RBT), diving headfirst into the world of clinical Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA). I also un-paused the Master’s degree I had sidelined during the chaos of COVID and new motherhood to pursue a career as a Board Certified Behavior Analyst (BCBA).

This is the piece of teaching I mourned the most. This connection was always the heart of my work, making the decision to leave the classroom the most painful goodbye of my career.

It was a leap of faith, born out of sheer necessity. I chose to switch from the schools to the clinic because I needed a lifeline—a space where my advocacy could actually take root. Instead of fighting for accommodations within a machine built for the "average" student, I desperately needed to step into an ecosystem where neurodivergent kids were the entire blueprint. I needed a framework that was data-driven, deeply individualized, and focused on empowering not just the child, but the whole family.

I will always be fiercely passionate about advocating for the kiddos in my care. I will always go to bat for what is right. But those agonizing two years taught me a vital lesson about power, equity, and survival: sometimes, you cannot fix a broken system from within. Sometimes, the first step to building something better is having the courage to walk away. It was the hardest professional goodbye of my life, but the experience of that classroom became the catalyst that led me exactly where I am meant to be today.

If You Can't Fix the Machine, Build a New One: The Vision for Something to Say ABA

Walking away from that classroom was the most difficult professional choice I have ever made. At the time, I didn't know that this painful exit would eventually lead to me opening my own practice. I just knew I had to survive, and I had to protect my passion for this field. Looking back now, I realize that stepping out of that broken system was the first necessary step toward building a new one. That shattered cup and that desperate leap of faith paved the way for Something to Say ABA.

We spent years empowering our students to problem-solve and self-advocate. Refusing to operate an unsafe, understaffed classroom was my own ultimate act of self-advocacy and  I knew it was time for me to check out.

We are building our Springfield clinic to be the exact opposite of the machine that failed my students. At Something to Say, neurodivergent children are not an afterthought, an inconvenience, or a square peg we are trying to force into a round hole—they are the entire framework. We will never punish a child for experiencing a meltdown or navigating the world differently. Instead, we use the science of behavior to look past the surface, understand the unmet need, and empower that child to self-advocate in an environment where they are fundamentally safe and celebrated.

As we prepare to open our doors this fall, I look back on those agonizing, sleepless nights not with regret, but with profound clarity. Leaving the classroom wasn't abandoning my students; it was the first step down a path that ultimately led me to create a space where kids just like them could finally thrive.

Next Up in the Series: Clinic-Based ABA is exactly where I belong and I learned so much as I grew to be a BCBA. But I quickly learned that wherever there are systems, there are challenges—and sometimes, data points obscure the complex kids they represent. Join me next time as I explore this final chapter before building my own practice.