Success Academy Charter Schools reviews

Everything else. Consistently negative and combative work environment, everyone on edge and spread 10x too thin, but then treated as though they're crazy when they express feelings of overwork and burnout. The mentality espoused by network and school admin is you can just believe yourself out of being belittled, harassed and exhausted. It's a you problem. It adds insult to the injury of the already incredibly poor working conditions. Curriculum includes at least two lessons worth of material per class and expectation across the board are similarly unattainable, which won't stop the constant cracking of the whip all the way up the chain to work harder and faster at goals that are ridiculously out of reach. I believe in working hard, I believe in setting difficult goals for yourself, but if you set goals that far out of the realm of possibility, people become discouraged and you have the opposite effect on morale and productivity. Pay is fine until your realize that most teachers work 11 hour days minimum. Classrooms are overcrowded, teachers are inexperienced. I literally saw half a dozen people who had never taught and had no education in teaching thrown into lead teaching roles days to weeks into starting in order to deal with vacancies left by qualified, disgruntled employees who couldn't take it any more. Parents would be horrified if they knew this. The Associate Teacher program is a joke and a thinly veiled way to keep up with the relentless churn and burn of teachers. Student learning suffers accordingly, and under double the pressure of a regular, qualified lead teacher, potentially successful future teachers burn out and quit before they've even been properly trained. Test prep is the focus for most of the year and students and teachers are equally miserable during this entire season. Do the kids really learn math and reading? Yes. And that's important. Do they learn social skills or how to value anything apart from grades (like, for instance, how to treat one another with respect)? No. They watch their end-of-their-ropes teachers bicker, snark and snap at one another and students and they learn that test scores are more important than anything else, humanity included. Whenever I mention that I worked there or meet someone else who worked there, people literally gasp in horror just at the name. I have been told in job interviews "If you survived at SA, you'll be fine here." Direct quote. Survived. Run don't walk away from this monster of a network.

Do not be fooled by the glittering offices, beautiful schools. It's all a marketing gimmick. This is a business masquerading as a school. They burn through kids, teachers and leaders to get high test scores and more funding to open more schools to get more money to burn through kids... you get the point. Kids are treated like robots and teachers teach like robots. Narrate 3 kids then give a consequence. Lock your hands, it's a consequence. Change your color to yellow, red. Over and over and over. Suspension, cool downs and obsession with scores is everything. Public shaming of children. Teachers, classes, grades and schools. Everything has a rank and you dont want to be in the red or last or near bottom. You are here to win and crush everyone. Ego tripping diva CEO who loves saving black and brown children and telling people to be cruel and win. Everyone is disposable and replaceable. Students, teachers, leaders. They move around people to fill in holes in schools and between schools. They move strong teachers to testing grades and move leaders to different schools when people quit. If you come here be prepared to know your role and memorize your lines. You are here to shame black and brown children. Control their bodies. Crush their autonomy and tell them what to do and how long it should take every second of every day. One get ready. Two silently stand up. Three line up to join the testing factory. Get green. Stay on green. Win.