My colleagues and our school partners share a palpable sense that our company has lost its way. A toxic environment has driven many good people to leave. The deliberate changes made by the new leadership —marked by manipulation and misinformation — seem designed to create chaos and pit people against one another. This has fostered a culture where self-preservation takes precedence over our shared mission, something I’ve never experienced before in my career. Unfortunately, much of our leadership lacks a basic understanding of our core customers, the public school districts we serve. Most of the new leadership's limited experience with only virtual schools, or nonprofits, or healthcare staffing, coupled with a hostile resistance to learning about public school districts, is actively harming the company. Despite being a supposed "tech-enabled" organization, our own contractors rely on a competitor's platform for caseload management. We've devolved into a staffing company of last resort, and our long-standing customers are leaving in droves.
To Senior Leadership: Please stop the gaslighting! Whether in meetings, internal communications, or public posts like those on LinkedIn. The constant self-promotion and the false narrative being pushed do not reflect the reality our team experiences daily. People are afraid to speak-up, for fear of retribution from the C-Suite. These actions are not only damaging internal morale, but they are also harming our credibility with school partners and undermining our brand. It would mean a great deal if we could believe that leadership truly stood behind our mission and values. Unfortunately, it increasingly feels like the primary concern is personal optics and board perception; often at the expense of transparency, trust, and the well-being of the team.
We ask for honesty. We ask for integrity. And above all, we ask for leadership that leads — not manipulates.
