Burnt-Out - Anonymous employee Success Academy Charter Schools Employee Review

There is consistent abuse of teachers and students in the way of neglect, verbal bullying, and taking advantage of those that are in no position to retaliate. This was always my main complaint of the network. It is a "fear-based culture" not only for staff, but for the children as well. To put it bluntly I will quote the first Success Academy child I talked to on my first observation of one of the schools: "What do you think of your school? Do you like it?" "Well...there are good things, and there are BAD things." In my time teaching there, I saw countless teachers have break downs due to stress because they were being bullied by other teachers or staff that was higher up. At one of the original locations, teachers are "encouraged" to get to school at 6:15 and stay until at least 6 or 7, even though teachers did not truly get breaks. Planning time is the only real break, and it is mostly taken up by creating materials and grading. Children have been denied snack for behavioral reasons by some teachers, and there is often a lack of any emotional support towards students. I have met a teacher that was let go because of a "lack of happiness" in the classroom, and I have seen a child be purposefully trapped under a desk for the duration of his tantrum. As a punishment, children are often denied the right to speak and converse for extended periods of time, which may fit into the category of "cruel and unusual punishment". Teacher/student bullying has been observed in more than one location of the network. In one location female teachers were required to wear high heels by the principal. Large class sizes and 10-12 hour work days mixed with teachers being left alone with classes and not having basic needs met like breaks/food...this is the recipe for things going wrong and they often do. In my one year of working at Success, I have witnessed or heard of more than five instances of a child being left behind the group, and the teacher not noticing. Eva is said to make grown teachers cry during critiques of their teaching practice, and most teachers at most schools are encouraged to be terrified of her and anyone else that comes to "observe" which adds to stress levels of those in charge of the wellbeing of children. People that work at Success's network are people that focus on content of what we teach and the style in which we do it. These people are said to cast a negative shadow on a school when their presence is strong, and more than one principal has had the view that we should up the appearance and performance of our school during visits even though it may be falling apart every other day, so that the network "goes away". Though in an ideal situation, a network observation should be welcomed and it should be helpful to a school, not toxic. During the end of the year in our discussion of what we would want to be changed in the future, we were told that we couldn't really help make any changes, because teachers bring up the same problems year after year and none of the real issues ever get solved. The hiring of young college graduates that are inexperienced and untrained accounts for inappropriate behavior in a professional teaching environment. For example, I have had a fellow teacher in their early 20s tell me they "hate [a child] so I'm never nice to her; I just ignore her" in relation to a student with a learning disability that affects how they interact socially and in the classroom. Teachers and Assistant Teachers that are not trained in child restraint are put into situations where they need to restrain children to keep them from hurting others or themselves, and this is a regular occurance. The toxic fear-based environment of Success Academies, and the abusive ways they treat their teachers and students makes it so that no salary is high enough for working there to be worth it.