HIGH turnover. When I started, there was only 1 administrator and a handful of employees who remained from the year before. Can you say chaos? Was told we were "building the plane as we fly it." Nobody really knew what was going on all year. We also had an interim principal from k12, who left before the year was through (to help in another state) when the new principal had no idea what was going on yet. It seemed like there were constantly people being fired or quitting all year. Of the people I spoke to who were fired, nobody was given any kind of prior indication that their performance wasn't up to par and all except one and said the "reasons" given were pure lies. Most jobs nowadays are "at will" and in my state teachers now only have annual contracts, but to take away somebody's income and benefits at a moment's notice (one week before the three weeks' paid vacation for summer was supposed to start, I might add) when they are working very long hours and doing the best job they can with a difficult situation is so wrong. I feel so bad for a colleague who actually left a teaching position where he had a professional contract to come here and ended up getting fired unjustly. When there is constant turnover, however, there is an easy excuse for the school being a chaotic mess. So perhaps this is strategic.
Way too much work expected for any human being to do in a 40 hour work week. As mentioned in the pros, there are a lot of dedicated educators working here, so we worked way more than our scheduled hours (8-5) to try to meet the needs. This is widespread in education, but we are paid even less at k12.
I was the only counselor for this school (we had more than 1500 students at one point!). The caseload is ridiculous... there is no way to even come close to meeting the needs. Every day felt like a drop in the bucket. I was hired late and random people had been placing students in courses (and most had something wrong with their placement). Yet there was no one to train me on their system until the end of the year, and I was never allowed to focus on fixing placement issues (was constantly asked to do administrative and clerical tasks/projects - we were in a perpetual state of dealing with one urgent project after another to clean up messes and fulfill district requirements). We were in many different districts, all with different policies, procedures, forms, and student information systems. At the end of the school year, I still had access to only half of those systems. Tell me how a counselor is supposed to advise students and parents with no access to student records?!?
Since I was trying to figure things out on my own all year (was a remote employee and almost all communication with administration was via email), I didn't have a full picture of what was going on. I knew it was chaotic, but I thought it was just because most of us were new and learning how things worked there and would improve... I thought the goal was to put "students first" and did everything I could to help clean things up. Towards the end of my time there, as I finally started to get access to more data and systems I started to realize that things were not as I had hoped and there were some things that I wished I could warn students and parents about. In fact, even before I left, I had been a difficult position all year dealing with parents who were understandably frustrated with the mess and how it was affecting their children's education, yet having to represent the company professionally. I was constantly trying to fix messes I didn't create, things that were bigger than my ability to fix, and smooth things over with upset parents.
The bottom line is: this is a FOR PROFIT company. That is why they are in business - to make money. The top 3 people make over 4 million dollars per year (while the ones who actually care about kids and work so tirelessly are getting paid tiny salaries). Let me add that this is tax-payer money. :( Employees are expendable. If you ask too many questions they will probably get rid of you.
I'm so thankful not to be associated with this place anymore. Online education isn't appropriate for MOST students (there are a few that it is a great option for), but they take anybody and everybody without any advisement at enrollment. Enrollment is done by salespeople in Virginia, not by counselors who understand State requirements and have the best interest of students at heart. HS students with GPAs below 1.0 were accepted without any advisement about not being able to fulfill graduation requirements since credit recovery options were not even available. Many of these students are on their last leg with education already. Students who hadn't attended (or barely attended) in months were still enrolled (I thought it was just because we were understaffed. From what I saw in district systems, so much of our information was incorrect - schedules, grades, attendance, etc.). This is so unethical and tragic to me as a counselor, but it is probably just fine to those who are trying to pad their pockets (since they can blame the data on the student's grades prior to coming to k12/FLVA or their disabilities, etc.).
