Kathy Magan waits to hear from the pilot on yet another flight. She waits to hear what the weather and time will be for the flight. She must remember all the safety regulations to keep the passengers safe. She did not always enjoy flying.

“In more recent years, I’ve actually been afraid of flying,” Magan explains.

This is because only recently did Magan really start flying. For most of her life she has been a teacher at District U46. She has taught, “fourth grade, fifth grade and sixth grade. Most recently I have been at second grade for seven years.”

Many people wonder why someone would make such a change of career. “I think it was several reasons,” Magan said. “I think I was getting burned out with teaching. I didn’t feel like it was the same thing as what it used to be.”

She mentions that: “My family heard me complain after school. People that were not teachers heard me complain and people I worked with would complain.”

“We get no support in the classroom anymore,” Stacy Morgan said. “I truly believe they need to hire more teachers and more aides.”

Morgan has taught first grade to sixth grade. She currently teaches second grade at Bartlett elementary school.

Magan has three children, a husband, two dogs, and two rats at home. “I didn’t feel like I was a good example for my kids, that I either had to find a way to be more positive about it or find a way to make a change. So, I chose to make a change,” she said.

Magan explained how she got the idea to be a flight attendant after she met a few people who were attendants. She was 45 when she really started to question this job.

“A lot of the jobs that were suggested to me were things I didn’t want to do because they were within the education system,” Magan said. “I like that it had structure. There’s lots of rules you have to follow, but then within that you can still talk to people every day.”

Magan said it took a year for the current airline to get back to her. She had applied to a few different ones, but the one she is at now gave her the position.

“We have certain requirements of announcements we have to say. If you didn’t say certain things, you could get in trouble,” Magan said. “{Another part of the job is} making passengers feel welcome, getting them to their seats so we can stay on time, and helping them with their luggage.”

There are some pros and cons with the job change to working for the airline. “The biggest thing is my schedule,” Magan said. “Not having all the time off to go see all my kids’ events and missing things. And then it was like a huge pay cut for me.”

“Not everyone has the ability to do that. {A} single parent is not going to be able to say, oh I’m quitting my job today.”

Magan says that she made sure she had some security because she didn’t resign from teaching until she was positive that she would pass her training.

”It makes me sad to see that people are staying stuck,” Magan said. “My advice would be, if you feel like it’s not right for you, don’t be afraid to change.”