Horrible place to work as an employee - Former Lead Teacher The Goddard School Employee Review

1.0
Aug 16, 2011
Recommend
CEO approval
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Pros

The only pros are the families and children - most of them are great! Most of the teachers loved the kids and families, and you could tell they loved their jobs.

Cons

The benefits are HORRIBLE at Goddard. They only offer 2 full weeks (10 days) personal/sick/vacation time, and 1 entire week is required to be taken during the week they are closed (between christmas and new years). So, really, you only get 5 days and you can't even roll them over - they expire by the end of the year. Management is another disgrace to this field. They don't care about the children at all - they see children as price tags. My entire career at goddard (one and a half years) they just kept cramming kids into the classrooms, and offered no support for teachers (5 min break to go to the bathroom? forget about it!). When the classroom had full enrollment, they just decided to transition children to make even more room - even when the children were NOT ready to go to the next room. One more thing - lead teachers are expected to do an insane amount of work, for horrible pay. Forget having time for your family. You are required to do lesson planning, which would be great if you actually had time and support to do your lessons - but because teacher turnover is so high, they are always low on staff, but they keep cramming kids into the school so whatever teachers they have they bounce all over the school. They never give you planning time during the day, so you are required to do it on your own time, as well as prepare decorations (all need to be homemade - nothing bought from the store) for cubbies, folder tags, doors, bathrooms, and fill out individual portfolio assessments of each child. Because you get no planning time, you're required to do this all on your own time - without pay.

Explore other reviews about The Goddard School

5.0
Jul 6, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Amazing place to work love the balance

Cons

I don’t have any so happy

2.0
Jul 24, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

The kids are great and the teachers are cool too.

Cons

Management has issues with micromanaging. You can be 3 min late to work and you could be fired. Ridiculous. They expect you to cater to them and put your life on the back burner. They also hire a lot of college students so I guess they expect everyone to be as flexible as college students who usually don’t have any real obligation outside of work. The hours also very inconsistent and not full time as I was hired for. Unorganized as well.

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