Because the founder is fanatically anti-union (in many ways that I agree with), employees do not get contracts and are always employed at-will. This creates a culture where no one has any job security and employees are always concerned that if they do not meet performance goals (set by the network) or if they question the ever-changing and intense expectations, they can be fired at any moment. There are many mid-year and mid-week firings, from brand-new teachers all the way up to the COO last year. No one is guaranteed their job from day to day. There are also many employees that choose to leave mid-year because the pressure is very high on a daily basis. Also, I have seen 2 people who tell their supervisor they are looking for other jobs be let go immediately because they are "no longer mission-aligned".
Given all of this, if you choose to work here you should know that you will be expected do whatever it takes to meet performance goals. Like most charter schools, this will definitely include long hours. Generally this means 10 hours a day at minimum, but for most new-to-Success employees (of all titles, and all experience levels) it often means more - plus time on weekends. However, unlike most charter schools I have seen/worked at, the work you do at Success will be thankless. So far, some weeks, I have worked 60 hours with no extra thanks because "it's our job" to do whatever it takes for the kids. Do not expect to feel appreciated at Success; you are replaceable, because everyone other than Eva is. If you value work-life balance, do not work here.
Lastly, if you choose to work here, be prepared to be unable to change cultural expectations around how to interact with scholars and families. This is especially true for very strict student behavior management. It is also true for the culture around student testing outcomes, which are seen as a North Star and used to rationalize many problematic test-prep techniques. These include constant "incentives" (i.e. Toys, trips, food) to bribe kids into not complaining during "kill and drill" testing weeks where we only teach test-taking strategies but are told that this is mission-aligned because the tests are our proof point that poor kids can do as well as rich kids. Lastly, your required weekly outreach to families will be impersonal and you are expected to "draw a hard line" by basically ordering them to do as you say as if they have no ideas about what's best for their children. I doubt that this same approach would be applied if the families we served were wealthy, which I find extremely problematic.
