Possibly leaving, but now it is hitting me.

I'm in my seventh year of teaching and I feel that it may be my last. I teach biology and health at an alternative high school, and this year has been the most difficult for me in terms of my mental health. Student behaviors with phones/earbuds just keep getting worse and I spend at least a quarter of my instruction time getting students to put away devices every period. After putting up with disrespect from students, overwork from two preps, expectations to just let students do basically whatever they want, and general existential dread from going to work every day, I've kind of just shut off my emotions - and that's why I think I'm done with this career.

I've looked for opportunities outside of the classroom with the district and they're available, but would require me to invest a substantial amount of time in continuing ed classes and possibly another master's degree, which I'm really not interested in doing at this point. I chose to study biology instead of an education related field so that I could possibly find something outside of education if I chose to leave. That has ended up working in my favor because I have been applying for state jobs and got called in for an interview later this week for something ecology related. The parameters of the job sound fantastic and it would be meaningful work that I would be mostly in charge of myself, plus I would get a hybrid schedule and sometimes get to go out into the field. From all the jobs I applied for, this is the one I was hoping for the most and I was ecstatic when they selected me for an interview.

My main issue now is that this position, if I were to even get it, pays a bit less than I'm currently making with the district. My wife has already cautioned me that if the state were to offer me anything lower than around $5K less than what I'm making now, I basically cannot take the job. When I heard that, all my excitement for the interview went out the window, since I was reminded that they might give me an offer on the lower end of the range. I completely understand my wife's view on this (we cannot take a large financial hit), but I seriously do not know how much longer I can go on working in education and feeling the way that I do every day. I would make any financial sacrifice to find something that is better for my mental health, but that is of course always easier said than done when you have a mortgage to pay. My wife asked why I even bothered applying for the position if I could see the pay range and could see that the low end was not enough, but I couldn't really answer her at the time. I thought about it for a while and the only answer I can think of now is that I need some sort of hope that things can and will change. They have to change; I'm tired of feeling dead inside every time I realize I'm teaching to myself in front of a class full of students because they're all just looking down at their phones.

I am going to stay optimistic this week and just hold out that this interview goes well and they give me a great offer.

UPDATE: The interview went great but I did not get an offer. Instead, admin added seven students to my already crowded homeroom period and some of them have past behavioral/defiance issues. On top of that, a student in one of my classes was arrested last week for bringing a gun to school, but was luckily caught due to someone turning them in. I really need to get out of here.