The System Will Replace You, Your Family Cannot: Wellness, Burnout, and Leaving the Principalship with Dr. Nadia Lopez

Dr. Nadia Lopez banked 156 unused sick days. When she finally got too sick to work, the Department of Education separated her from payroll and told her she could come back to work.

In this episode of Ronderings, Ron sits down with Dr. Nadia Lopez, award-winning educator, best-selling author of The Bridge to Brilliance, and the founding principal of Mott Hall Bridges Academy in Brownsville, Brooklyn, for a conversation about educator wellness, burnout, and what it costs to give a system everything you have.

Dr. Lopez never planned to teach. She trained as a critical care nurse, detoured through Verizon, and was rejected from the NYC Teaching Fellows before a mentor forced them to put the rejection in writing. They could not. She landed in a seventh grade special education classroom in Fort Greene and brought her nursing philosophy with her: know the child before you read the IEP, treat the behaviors and not the label, understand the context before you diagnose the problem.

She talks about asking her students whether they had a library at home and realizing they did not own a single book, while thousands sat unused in school storage rooms. She talks about the Global Teacher Prize taking her to Dubai, Sweden, and Korea, and what those systems understand about sustainability that we do not. She talks about her mentor Karen, who ignored her own symptoms the same way Dr. Lopez ignored hers.

And she talks about the autoimmune diagnosis that ended her principalship, the medical sabbatical the DOE denied her, and the fight to get insurance back so she could have surgery.

Tune in to hear why Dr. Lopez believes leadership is responsibility, not martyrdom, and what her HEART framework asks of leaders who have never once been asked how their heart and spirit are doing.

Chapters:

🩺 02:53 Dr. Nadia Lopez never wanted to be an educator, she was supposed to be a nurse

✉️ 06:56 Rejected by the NYC Teaching Fellows, until a mentor asked them to put it in writing

🏫 11:31 Seventh grade special education in Fort Greene, and the nursing philosophy she brought with her

📕 15:30 The question she asked every student: do you have a library at home

🇬🇹 20:27 Guatemala, the food pantry, and the child nobody knew was struggling

🌍 23:44 The Global Teacher Prize, teaching under a tree, and what other systems understand

❤️ 29:30 The question she asks educators everywhere: how is your heart and spirit

🕯️ 31:26 Karen Giles, glioblastoma, and the signs they both ignored

🚫 41:16 The HEART framework, 156 unused sick days, and the sabbatical the DOE denied

👩‍👧 45:14 Walking away as the lesson she was teaching her daughter about her own worth

📋 50:36 We have attendance protocols for students and nothing for leaders

💭 54:58 The Ronderings question: listen to your body or you become a hypocrite

Links:

Website: www.thelopezeffect.com
Work with Dr. Lopez: www.thelopezeffect.com/workwithme
Socials: @thelopezeffect on LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok, Threads, and X

Dr. Lopez coaches women leaders in education on building careers they can sustain, and she is launching a new health and wellness endeavor. Reach out to her if you are leading a school or a system and no one has asked you lately how your heart and spirit are doing.

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