The Exit Interview: A Podcast for Black Educators

Shani Dowell left a business career for a seventh-grade math classroom, then left the classroom to build Possip a listening platform now used by over 1,000 schools in 35+ states. In this episode, she talks candidly about her non-traditional path into teaching, the reality of a two-teacher household on a $30K salary, recruiting at HBCUs, and why "contentedness" might be the most underrated wellness strategy for educators. If you've ever had an idea and wondered how to start small, take a look at this episode.

In this special episode of The Exit Interview, Dr. Asia Lyons shares a milestone eight years in the making: the podcast's permanent archival at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, the first podcast ever accepted into its collection.  She traces the story back to her own 2018 exit interview, the moment of relief that sparked the idea to give other Black educators a chance to tell their truth.  Ninety-three episodes later, what began as a search for a simple narrative of racism and burnout revealed something far more layered: misogynoir, anti-Blackness, colorism, and the slow, hard-won return to joy and wellness after harm. Now, with the Schomburg preserving these testimonies as living historical record, Dr. Lyons introduces what's next: The Exit Interview Archive Project, an invitation to institutions and individuals to help carry Black educator stories further into the world.  As she puts it, the stories we save, save us. 

Stacie McClam went from being bused to "better" schools as a Black child in LA, to teaching across DC, Japan, Denver, and Kuwait, and what she found everywhere was the same broken system dressed up differently.She became the "fix-up lady," repeatedly hired mid-year to salvage classrooms other teachers fled. She watched Black and Latino kids get pushed through grades without learning to read, saw phonics stripped from US curricula that worked brilliantly in Kuwait, and fought systems that celebrated bare minimum as excellence. The toll was real: shingles, hair loss, depression, and a PTSD diagnosis when it was all over.So she quit. Both teaching and law were another system she found too biased to use. Instead, Stacie picked up a camera. Her film production company, School Dismissed, is making a trilogy of narrative fiction films tackling AI surveillance, education inequity, and what Black students deserve. Her first film, Mr. Advocate, premieres this month.Her message is clear: the system isn't failing by accident. And she's done explaining that in words nobody reads now she's showing it on screen.

S. Jae Ali, EdM, has taught in Charlotte, Chicago, China, and Brazil, and every classroom taught her something the next one couldn't fix. In this episode, the South Side Chicago native and former educator gets honest about the racism she faced in her teacher prep program, the mental health toll of toxic leadership, the thrill of watching struggling students soar, and why she ultimately walked away from the classroom. From COVID lockdowns in Zhengzhou to a private school in So Paulo where she was the only Black teacher, Jae's story is proof that the problem isn't always the kids and that choosing yourself isn't quitting. Now running wellness workshops and speaking engagements through her platform S. Jae Ali Speaks, she's still teaching. Just on her own terms.

Danica Moore, Ed.D. knew she was meant to teach before she even had a lesson plan, from sharpening skills with second graders at 10 years old to taking over her Sunday school class on a dare. With nearly 20 years in education, she's worn every hat: special ed teacher, ESL specialist, reading and math coach, equity facilitator, district office leader, and now founder of Fortified Educational Practices and Program Director for the National Freedom Schools Partnership.But this episode isn't just a career highlight reel. It's an honest look at what happens when the work you love starts to cost you when equity work becomes a cage. Dr. Danica opens up about the emotional toll of being one of the only people of color in predominantly white spaces, navigating colleagues who never hid their resistance to the work, waking up in tears every day during her first year at the district office, and learning how to reconnect with herself after years of pouring out.She and I explore what radical resilience actually looks like: not grinding through the pain, but learning to be still, redefining rest, and returning to yourself after the work has tried to reshape you.