Set against an organized school reform backdrop, this inquiry features four challenges I faced as a result of working alongside teachers and principals whose urban schools were awarded major school research grants for a 5-year period. In addition to teasing out the origins of the dilemmas I encountered and showing how they impacted my teaching practice, I make two knowledge contributions through my public presentation of this self-study. First, I add a new set of partnered narratives--the stories of teacher educators/teacher educators' stories of self. Second, I extend my research niche to reveal the role I played as a living, breathing dimension of the educational conduit.