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Connections Academy

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Connections Academy reviews

3.6

62% would recommend to a friend

(535 total reviews)
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Tom ap Simon

56% approve of CEO

56% positive business outlook

Connections Academy has an employee rating of 3.6 out of 5 stars, based on 535 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The Connections Academy employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Education industry (3.7 stars).

Reviews by job title

535 reviews
1.0
Mar 6, 2013

Avoid this company at all costs!!!

Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

None--the micromanagement of administration and the general disrespect of teachers is the worst I have ever seen or experienced

Cons

This place should not call itself a school, it is a corporation and they only care about money. As a teacher I can attest that most students DO NOT do well learning in this environment and they enroll ANY student whether or not they can succeed. Teachers do not teach, we are "customer service reps" who are bogged down with menial tasks. If you want to work for a corporation and not a school and don't really want to teach then this is the place for you!

4.0
Mar 19, 2021
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

-Part of Pearson which is a 10,000+ employee company, so good benefits and 401(k) matching -Very, very talented teachers and administration (principals, AP's, etc) -Very tech friendly -Wonderful students/families -Working from home full-time -Pre-COVID, there were in-person field trips and meetings a few times a year which were always fun

Cons

-For SPED only: The workload is horrific. Caseloads can be large at times (at one point I had almost 40 kids) because Pearson decides if hiring is allowed or not, not your actual school. You could actually end up doing the job of 3 people between teaching, the SPED paperwork, and having to talk to families about graduation planning and course placement for their IEP's, which is honestly a job for guidance counselors, but guidance doesn't handle that aspect. -Also SPED only: IEP compliance is prioritized over all other aspects of your job. You could spend 6-8 hours on one 40 page IEP document only to have the SPED director or other administrator refuse to sign it over a single wrong sentence or checkbox or whatever. Highly frustrating and it wears on you after awhile and feels like a personal attack even though they do it to every SPED teacher on the team. This is to ensure that audits always go well for the school. -Pay is OK, but for the workload it was unacceptable, to be honest - another $15,000 per year would go a long way to make up for the intense workload -HR is an absolute joke. Each school does NOT have their own HR team in-house. Everything has to be referred to HR at Pearson, which is not even in the same state as your school in the vast majority of cases so that disconnect makes them seem to...not care? The only way to reach them is an e-mail address. If you call the employee line, you get someone on the line who ONLY answers the phone and who tries to push you back to using the e-mail address, even in emergencies. This phone individual is not an HR person and does not know how to address any HR situation. Meanwhile, the e-mail address will take days to receive a response, if at all. All employment verifications have to go to Pearson HR as well - your supervisor at school is not allowed to verify - and I almost had a job offer pulled at my new job when my new job's HR had difficulty reaching someone to verify for me.

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Connections Academy Response
5y
Thank you for your thorough feedback! Reviews like yours will help us ensure that we are meeting the needs of both our staff and students. We will be taking your recommendations into consideration. If you would like to further this conversation please contact Human Resources, at humanresources.obl@pearson.com.
1.0
Dec 6, 2018
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Educators who have stayed because they care about their students.

Cons

Low pay - 15-20% lower than average salaries. Terribly in adequate leadership. HIGH TURN OVER. Most people leave after they get experience. Micro manage mania! Leadership does not value their team members, they blame and talk down to staff. Bonus and review structure is a complete scam. Benefits are sub par.

Viewing 16 - 18 of 535 Reviews

Glassdoor has 562 Connections Academy reviews submitted anonymously by Connections Academy employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if Connections Academy is right for you.