Pros
Awesome kids & school community
Cons
It's a cult. I think most sites have gotten rid of the literal cult chanting, but if you google characteristics of a cult, CY checks off most of the boxes. You will have no work/life balance, and they will try to get you to do as much free labor as possible by posing it as a "leadership opportunity." You are classified as a "volunteer" and not an "employee," so literally no labor laws apply. If you want a similar school experience, you are better off spending a year as a para in your local school district, at least you will be paid more than $5/hr. Super cliquey and gossipy. I actually dreaded coming to work because I knew my manager would verbally abuse me and refuse to support me and the upper management would gaslight me about it. Staff members would get romantically and/or sexually involved with corps members. Pretends to care about diversity, belonging, inclusion, and equity, and would "talk the talk" so to speak, but when it actually came down to putting it into practice would flop. Cannot tell you how much racism, ableism, homophobia, transphobia, etc I either witnessed or experienced at the organization itself. If you have mental health issues already, do not put yourself through this.
