I've been in your possible situation at an elementary school in Detroit for the past 2 years, and I agree with most of the responses. I have learned that a paycheck is not worth my mental health.

Sadly if a culture has been created where students know that there is a new principal every year, and that there aren't serious consequences for certain behaviors...your hands are tied.

In schools with significant behavior issues teachers are often left to do the heavy lifting. There is no such thing as sending kids to the principal, or sending them to a suspension room etc...you deal with it. There were times I would break up a fight, call security (security would talk to the kids for 2 minutes) and then the child(ren) would return to my room like nothing happened.

Most of their parents had grown up in similar schools so they too didn't see fighting etc as a serious infraction..because it wasn't serious when they were growing up either.

Most of these behavior management books/articles were not written about public school children who have significant social and emotional needs. This is a huge reason for underperformance and there is little time during the day to address these issues.

I wish you the best of luck if you take this on and would love to hear a follow up from you. Teaching is hard but public school teachers in the hood..MUCH respect. It's all for the kids at the end of the day..when it gets hard, remember that.