Before we begin, if you click on "Rating Trends" in the above section next to metrics box above, you will notice that Success' rating on Glassdoor jumped from a 2.6 star rating in February 2019 to a 3.2 star rating as of the day of this review. The improvement did not occur because there have been sweeping reforms to organizational practices, it is because there was an internal push to improve ratings to help with staffing for the upcoming year.
Success is so desperate to recruit and train staff at the school level, there was a push over the past 5 months to improve organizational perception they have manipulated ratings much in the same way the schools improve outcomes by stacking classrooms with only high performing students while squeezing out low performers, behavior outliers, and leaving a bare bones SPED program for the 19-20 school year.
Eva's army will do anything to insulate her to get ahead in this toxic CMO.
Let's begin.
• Top management does not seem to care about or reward appropriate behavior: The most committed, eager, and talented employees are systematically broken down through practices that induce anxiety and chip away at self-confidence in order to "keep employees on their toes." Sadly, organizational leadership has resided to pushing a culture that ignores commitment and dedication to drive a culture of subversion and competition. Management does not understand that the greatest competition to its mission exists outside of the walls of its schools, takes every opportunity to tear down employees who are committed, doing what is right for the scholars, and making strides as young educators/administrators without acknowledging the sacrifice that comes from 60+ hour weeks.
• Lack of recognition for proper job performance: SWAG and Freebies are nice, but management that is capable of doing more than throwing you a sweatshirt and a gift card would help organization culture. Relishing moments of success with staff around student academic growth, with operations after larger events, or any member of staff after impactful/ small moments would do more than a freebie. Leaders speak, things don't.
• Negative feedback: there is a corporate culture that focuses on the negative and never the positive. The rationale behind this is, as mentioned above, "to keep staff on their toes." By design, feedback is constantly negative, and designed to make staff constantly strive to "do more for the children." What management does not share is that a significant portion of their annual income comes from the outcomes of the monthly operational audits, and test scores of your scholars. Remember, when you are receiving feedback from your supervisor, it is often referred to as Radical Candor to mask the fact that their goal is drive compliance and not development, and it will be assuredly negative, anxiety inducing, with no tangible benchmarks or real coaching to help you improve. This negative feedback never allows you to rest, but is designed to help your managers rest a little easier knowing you are working to their ultimate goal of receiving 100% of their bonus.
Some food for thought: As a first year teacher/assistant teacher, your principal will receive a year end bonus that is equivalent to 30-50% of your salary that is based on primarily test scores and attendance. The harder you work, the better your data, the bigger the payout for your managers.
• Substantial organizational inequities: Read above.
• Autocratic management, rather than participative management: Your principal will rule their elementary/middle school kingdom with an iron fist, stomp their feet and yell about their vision, make it known you are nobody, you are easy to replace, and you probably do not have what it takes to be at Success long term if you do not immediately comply with their wishes. The notion of collaboration and improvement is dead at Success.
• Culture of entitlement from school leadership: If you watch Parks and Rec, you are most likely familiar with 'Treat yo' Self.' This is the mantra for school leadership. There is a popular saying you will hear at any Leadership convention of "there is no budget." This Carte Blanc culture feeds, actually buys lunch for your leadership, multiple times a week. Think about that when you don't have time for a prep, or are hour 17 in the school after a long event with the expectation of being at work at 6:30 am the following morning.
• Low organizational loyalty at every level of the organization: Turn over is high, and there is actually a strategic initiative that came down from the top to try and address this, but there is very little change that is coming because it wound unravel the current model and require a tremendous cultural shift/upskilling of employees that the organization is not interested in investing in with current turnover.
• Fear of delivering “bad news” to supervisors and/or management: When something goes wrong, it invariably will no matter how much planning you put in to the job, your supervisor/principal/school manager will have no problem humiliating you, calling you names, or threatening your job over things like a scholar being fidgety when they have to go to the bathroom, missing juice boxes at an event, or DOE transportation cancelling on you because of a driver strike. Sharing things not going perfectly to plan creates a culture of fear that reduces communication of reality and insulates those at the top in a culture of delirium.
• Less-than-competitive compensation: Every other charter pays significantly better and DOE/other model public schools provides better hours. The job requires consistent 60+ hours per week with a base pay of 48k -55k for educators. That equates to just around $15 dollars an hour without overtime at 60 hours/week. Operations teams had bonuses slashed and re-purposed to salary based on the change in law with it sold as a great change for them to earn more, when in reality it was nothing more than complying with the law. Education managers had their pay cut significantly as Success has reduced the SPED services coordination and management function to a non-critical role.
• Poor training and promotional opportunities: The reality is that most of you school leaders will be under 30 years old, less than 5 years in classroom, have never passed the Principals exam, and focus more on behavior management than teacher development. If you can run your team/classroom like you would a boot camp, you will succeed. If you want to learn to how improve Lexile levels or work with ESOL students more effectively, that will not happen under the current leadership/management model.
• Unfair, unequal and unclear organizational responsibilities: Expectations are set, shifted, reset, and never fully clear. If you are skilled at spinning things to management to make them feel like they led to a positive outcome the entire time, you will be able to navigate this. As an early career individual, that probably won't happen.
• Poor communication practices or methods within the organization: I have dozens of emails riddled with profanity, threats, and statements that would lead to the termination of management in any other organization that would make you question taking a job with success.
• Unspoken Discriminatory Practices: A school manager one time told me in confidence that they were disappointed a teacher was pregnant and thought it was "gross" that anyone would consider having a child. Taking Mat/Pat leave, taking disability leave, requesting concessions based on disabilities, and if you are over 35 are just a few other things that are looked down upon/career ending at Success. The organization believes the dedication to the mission is more important than the overall well being of organization's staff. As a member of leadership, I was part of many of these conversations, and always mortified by what was said by School Managers/Operations Leaders/Principals/BOMs/Education Managers/APs. You as an individual will be squeezed out if you need support/take advantage of your benefits.
