Pros
Our kids and their families are incredible. They are the reason I am still at the school. Overall the school curriculum is good. I am deeply grateful for the fellowship program and the opportunity it gave me to go back to grad school while making a living. Our school director at school 3 is a very dedicated person who I trust, as is my grade team lead.
Cons
The school has successfully created an environment where every child has testing anxiety. We are routinely understaffed, resulting in the worst burnout I’ve experienced in my tenure at the school. We do not hire substitutes, and instead have teachers cover for other teachers- sometimes without prep periods replaced. In an environment where we already work ten hours a day, we are routinely asked to have before and after school meetings without any additional compensation for that extra time. All lessons are fully scripted- which effectively means that lessons I could write, prep, and internalize in 5-15 minutes becomes at least 45-1 hr of planning time. Teachers with 3+ years of experience end up in leadership positions, but outside of that, meaningful teacher development drops off at about the 3 year mark. The school strives for liberation, but students are only assessed via formal written assessments, there is little to no project based learning, creativity is stifled for kids and adults, and the curriculum is dotted with systemic racism. Some work has been done to fix this, however, more must be done.