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Success Academy Charter Schools

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Success Academy Charter Schools reviews

2.1

10% would recommend to a friend

(2,674 total reviews)

Eva Moskowitz

13% approve of CEO

12% positive business outlook

Success Academy Charter Schools has an employee rating of 2.1 out of 5 stars, based on 2,674 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have an average working experience there. The Success Academy Charter Schools employee rating is 44% below average for employers within the Education industry (3.7 stars).

Reviews by job title

3K reviews
1.0
Jan 11, 2019
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

The ability to connect with the children was truly amazing. They are all unique and talented in their own individual ways and to be able to cultivate and contribute to their social and academic development is truly a rewarding experience.

Cons

Where To Begin.. 1.) There is absolutely NO work life balance. Working here is committing yourself to LONG hours up 11hr work days, not accounting for the work you go home and have to do. 2.) NO Breaks. Your prep periods are used for work an meetings. If you are seen not working then it will be noted and later brought up to discredit your work ethic. Be prepared to eat and work, if you eat at all. 3.) No real support or guidance. You can be easily promoted if perceived to be strong in behavior management. There is no real investment in developing your craftsmanship as a first or second year teacher. PDs are utilized to discuss and compare your school's performance across the success academy network. Often times not purposeful. You need to observe and catch onto things quickly. You will be moved around, talked about and even let go if you are unable to quickly adjust to a high stress and militarized environment. 4.) Data driven is an understatement when talking about success. This school masks a greed to produce high data with a passion for education. Children are STRESSED and filled with anxiety. I've witnessed several incidents where students BREAK DOWN in exams, even inflicting self harm because they are so stressed out about taking an exam and the consequences that result from performing poorly. I have witnessed teachers ridicule and berate scholars for not receiving high scores even if the scholar passed. Children are unhappy, but bribed to instill some sort of joy through "incentives", which are ultimately used to reward scholars who solely perform well and produce high "data". Kids are put back in the middle of the school year if they do not show signs of academic progress right away. Kids will be skipped if they perform well academically, however they do not take into account the social development of the child. I witnessed a child be skipped from kindergarten to 2nd grade, that is just NOT okay. 5.) Management and Leadership is at my location was absolutely God awful. They were cliquey and completely unsupportive if you "pushed back" on feedback, which could range from anything, from your classroom attendance or requests for additional support. E-mails are often framed in a way to discredit you work ethic and they will fabricate and embellish situations to cover their tails and further discredit you as the teacher. They have unrealistic expectations for teachers and no real measures of support to assist teachers with meeting these "expectations". The few teachers that do have attained it in underhanded ways that ultimately harms the child's perception of what education should look like. 6.) CEO is out of touch with what is going on in her schools; Or she really believes teachers are disposable just so long as whoever is employed produces the data to further success's agenda in education. 7.) This organization claims to be committed to providing quality education to the underprivileged, however, parents aren't treated with much respect. Teachers are often required to scold parents for their inability to meet every single expectations success has, not taking into account what a family may be experiencing at home. Truly out of touch with the community they serve. 8.) You will LOSE your passion to teach if you choose to work here.

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Success Academy Charter Schools Response
7y
We’re very sorry to read that you had a negative experience working at SA. We are transparent about the fact that teachers work hard — in their first months in particular, they are learning many new skills and hours can be long; this is the case for brand-new teachers in any school setting. By necessity, much of teaching is learned by doing, and when you are first learning the skills of delivering engaging lessons, managing a classroom, studying the curriculum, and analyzing student work to pinpoint areas of struggle and ways to address them, it can feel like you are juggling a lot. We do provide tons of support to our teachers. Besides half days each week for training, teachers plan lessons under the direct guidance of instructional leaders and receive daily in-the-moment coaching and feedback. We also have an archive of videos of exemplar teaching for every lesson that teachers can study to help them prepare. We urge teachers to reach out for help from supervisors and colleagues if they are struggling — everyone is willing to share insights! We take complaints about disrespectful or belittling management seriously and encourage employees to speak directly to the Human Capital team if they have troubling experiences. We make the decision to investigate based on the severity of complaints, and we have processes in place to investigate claims when more information is needed. We believe that our scholars are able to master very complex, and sophisticated content — in this way we are similar to nations around the world that far outperform the United States — and comparing data (in the form of student work) from classrooms across our network is a powerful tool for understanding where we are excelling in supporting scholars so we can quickly share out best practices. Because we are committed to ensuring all our scholars are truly prepared to excel in selective colleges, we sometimes hold scholars back a year or skip them forward. These decisions are made holistically — certainly not based on a single test — and our scholars thrive as a result. Indeed, one of our seniors who was held back just got accepted with a full-ride scholarship to an Ivy League college. Delivering great schooling is hard. We sometimes make mistakes and are always working to make adjustments and improvements so all our students have an outstanding experience. Thank you for the time you spent with us and good luck in your next endeavor.
2.0
Jan 23, 2018
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

-You are there for the kids and get to see them smile every day -I had some great coworkers that I still keep in touch with -As my first job out of college, I learned a lot that I can take with me in my career -Free snacks and lunches

Cons

-They will work you until you drop. You are expected to be there from 7AM (often earlier, especially in the spring) until 5PM or later. And despite it being illegal, you will not get a lunch break. You are "chained to your desk" and it is impossible to leave the building if you want to get food. -Management will email, text, and call you all night long. And I literally mean all night- emails at 2AM, 3AM, 4AM. When your boss does not care about work-life balance, it takes a toll on you and you don't feel appreciated. I was always anxious and felt like I had to be checking my phone (even after 10 hour days!) -Management does not respect the operations team (which includes the CRC role). At an event I planned, all the signs I had created were torn down and I was told to re-do multiple things minutes before the event was supposed to start. I'm all about feedback, but when upper management is ripping down someone's work that they put a lot of time into and not even providing this feedback beforehand, that is disrespectful and creates unnecessary stress. -The week before school opens, expect to work insane hours. On the Friday before, I was there from 7AM to 9PM. After 14 hours spent at work that day, we were forced to do a final walk-through of the building, where tiny marks on the wall were pointed out that we had to scrub off. These are the crazy demands you will come to expect if you work at Success Academy.

1.0
Jan 15, 2018
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Working with wonderful children, great benefits even for a new hire, coworkers that are passionate about working with children and truly want to be the best teacher that they can.

Cons

I couldn't even make it through the new teacher training because I was so disgusted with this place. Just some of the more questionable practices of Success Academy that I learned from training are: - Because it's a charter school, success doesn't need to adhere to state mandated hours. Many schools require you to get there at 6:30 in the morning and prevent you from leaving until 5:30 at night. If you're in elementary school, that's a school day that's three hours longer than public schools for children as young as 5. - You will not be placed in the school you request. Upon hiring, success tries to make it seem as though they have your best interest in mind by asking you what areas would be most convenient for you to get to. These are completely ignored and they'll place people from Long Island in the Bronx or Harlem, asking them to sit in hours of traffic to get the work and hours of traffic when they leave every day. - A death in the family is not considered a good reason to be absent from school for a length of time. Children who experience a death in the family are permitted ONE excused day off from school and this is if the OBITUARY is provided to the school. After that, every day absent from school is considered unexcused and add up to a suspension, even if a parent passes away and even if the child needs to travel to attend a funeral. - The financial situations of parents and families are not taken into consideration. Many of the neighborhoods that success is in are economically disadvantaged. A look at the New York State report card website states that some schools have economic disadvantage up to 85%. We were told during training, that if a parent says their child is wearing different shoes to school because their school shoes are ruined and they cannot afford new shoes to not empathize, to not offer to help the family, but to say "When will you have the shoes?". - Dismissal. Parents and guardians are given a ten minute window to pick up their child. Ten minutes. If they do not arrive on time to pick up their child, the child is punished and the parent is grilled on why they couldn't make it. I know very few parents that are able to pick their children up at 3:45 every day because they're working. Again, take these as you want. But these were all observations I made JUST FROM TRAINING. I can't imagine how it is in an actual classroom and school. If you're a certified teacher, you're too good for this place.

Viewing 19 - 21 of 2,674 Reviews

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