Thinking about switching to PT on a unit that's otherwise toxic

[pinkiepie_RN]

I'm on a locked, 26-bed, IP psych unit as a FT 7a-7p RN. We treat everything from depression to schizoaffective to addictions. I'm also in graduate school 6 credits/semester for my M.S. in Nursing Education, and am about halfway there. I'm doing my student teaching this semester, which requires more work of me than school normally does. My manager is terrible at managing our unit - morale is low, staffing is a mess, and she's finally resorting to a committee to coordinate staffing so we don't blame her anymore. The patient acuity is increasing every day and I swear that the SW down in the ER goes on the streets and picks out patients and calls other hospitals asking for transfers when they think we're upstairs twiddling our thumbs (which we're not!). I've got a lot of personal stress going on. Between student loans paying for tuition, the fact that work helps with tuition reimbursement and that I can't afford to take time off from school for orientation even if I were to get another job, I feel like I'm stuck until I can find a full-time nursing faculty position. Has anyone else been in this kind of situation and successfully transferred to a PT/24 hours a week position to maintain their sanity?