Room 605

Room 605 is a book for educators who feel exhausted by a profession they once loved—and are quietly wondering why caring became so costly.

This is not a story about burnout as a personal failure. It is an examination of how the education system conditions teachers to overextend, self-abandon, and mistake endurance for purpose. Through lived experience in classrooms and leadership roles, Ann Bommarito reveals why so many dedicated educators feel depleted, disillusioned, and unable to name what went wrong.

Inside Room 605, readers will find:

• A clear reframing of burnout as a systemic outcome, not an individual weakness
• Insight into the myths that keep educators trapped: the calling, the ladder, and the guilt
• Language for experiences many educators have felt but never been taught to articulate
• Permission to question what they were taught to accept
• A grounded path toward reclaiming identity, health, and agency—whether that means staying, shifting, or building something new

This book is not about quitting.
It is about waking up to the truth of a system that was never built to protect the people inside it—and deciding what comes next.

If you have ever felt unseen, overextended, or quietly undone by your work in education, Room 605 offers clarity, validation, and the space to imagine a different future.