The Exit Interview: A Podcast for Black Educators
What happens to the knowledge Black educators carry when they leave?
Black educators leave schools for many reasons. Some leave after years of racial battle fatigue, organizational harm, isolation, overwork, or leadership experiences that made staying too costly. Others leave because their identities, dreams, and possibilities have grown beyond the institutions where they once worked.
But leaving a school system does not mean leaving education. It certainly does not mean leaving behind the knowledge gained while moving through it.
The Exit Interview preserves that knowledge. Through long-form conversations with Black educators, the podcast documents what people experienced, what they learned, what finally led them to leave, what they carried with them, and who they became afterward.
Listen for More Than the Last Straw
Every episode begins with a person. Not a statistic. Not a retention problem. Not a cautionary tale. A whole person whose relationship with education existed before the moment they decided to leave and continues afterward. Listeners are invited to pay attention to the turning points, contradictions, joy, grief, relationships, dreams, and lessons inside each conversation.
More Than an Exit Story
A resignation tells us that someone left. It rarely tells us why. Retention data can count departures. It cannot fully explain the experiences that came before them.
The Exit Interview creates space for Black educators to tell those stories in their own words without reducing complex lives to a single reason for leaving.
Conversations explore work, identity, leadership, racial battle fatigue, belonging, family, joy, institutional harm, reinvention, and the many ways Black educators continue contributing to education and community after leaving traditional roles.
The result is not a collection of cautionary tales. It is a growing record of Black educational knowledge.
A Storykeeping Project
The podcast began as a place for honest conversation. Over time, it became clear that something larger was being created.
Each interview preserves an individual experience. Together, the interviews hold collective memory.
That is why we understand The Exit Interview as storykeeping.
The project does more than share stories publicly. It intentionally documents experiences that might otherwise disappear from the historical record and preserves them so they can continue informing scholarship, community memory, and future generations.
Preserved at the Schomburg Center
The milestone ensures that these conversations will remain part of a historical record dedicated to preserving and interpreting the experiences of people of African descent.
For Liberated Educators Lab, the significance extends beyond recognition.
It means Black educators who trusted this project with their experiences will have their stories preserved for people they may never meet. Researchers may study them. Educators may learn from them. Families may encounter the voices of people whose experiences mirror their own.
Future generations will be able to hear Black educators describe this period of educational history in their own words.
The People Behind the Collection
The archive includes classroom teachers, school leaders, counselors, social workers, higher education professionals, nonprofit leaders, consultants, researchers, advocates, and educators whose careers have taken unexpected directions.
Their paths after leaving traditional education are just as important as the circumstances that led them out.
Many continue teaching in different forms.
They build organizations. Write books. Lead nonprofits. Coach educators. Conduct research. Create curriculum. Advocate for families. Support wellness. Enter entirely different professions.
Their stories challenge a common assumption:
Leaving an institution is not the same as abandoning the work.
The Exit Interview became the first podcast collection selected for preservation by the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.
The Conversations Continue
More than 90 Black educators have shared their experiences so far, adding perspectives across geography, roles, generations, and professional paths.
The collection continues to grow with every new conversation. Each conversation stands on its own. Placed alongside one another, they also allow us to notice something larger. Which experiences keep appearing? What changes across roles and communities? Where does Black educator knowledge go after someone leaves a traditional institution? What becomes possible once people have enough distance to speak freely about what they experienced?
Black educator history is still unfolding. The Exit Interview will continue documenting and archiving it.
Want to Engage With The Exit Interview in Your Work?
The archive may be relevant to researchers, universities, classrooms, professional learning communities, museums, libraries, cultural institutions, journalists, and organizations studying Black educator experience, institutional culture, workforce departure, racial battle fatigue, or public history.
For research, educational use, archival collaboration, media inquiries, or other projects involving the collection:
Start Listening
Explore conversations with Black educators from across the United States and hear what becomes visible when people have space to tell the story in their own words.
Every episode begins with a person.
Not a statistic.
Not a retention problem.
Not a cautionary tale.
A whole person whose relationship with education existed before the moment they decided to leave and continues afterward.
Listeners are invited to pay attention to the turning points, contradictions, joy, grief, relationships, dreams, and lessons inside each conversation.