Success Academy Charter Schools reviews

If I could give negative stars to Success Academy I would. The only reason why I gave 5 stars for Career Opportunities is because there is such high turnover that there are always job openings. Insanely high (and constant) turnover at the network and schools. The operations team, for example, was losing people at a daily rate. Most people quit, but they also force you out if someone doesn't like you - either by treating you terribly or just firing you. If you get fired or give notice, they make you leave right then and there - you cannot say goodbye or gather your things (they send your belongings to you). They have a goal to expand to 100 schools in the next 5 years but they won't be able to do it if teachers and employees keep quitting at the insanely high rates they are! Success' approach with the kids is terrible and frankly abusive and punitive. Students are constantly berated and screamed at - spend their day in terror. They get 20 minutes for lunch and recess because food and fresh air isn't important to a child- only test scores are! Test scores are they only thing that matter and they spend most of the day preparing for those tests - a process that most teachers think is a carrot and stick method - if you do well, you get a treat. During testing, staff cannot wear heels or loud shoes, students cannot go to the bathroom (and often wet themselves), students cannot wash their hands (strictly use hand sanitizer), and teachers aren't allowed to eat. Teachers are encouraged to "tear and repair" - meaning tear up a test/homework if a student did poorly and then make them redo it. Teachers have 12+ hour long days and don't get to sit down in their classrooms. Success is really wasteful with their money. They spend millions of dollars building their schools, only to change room use a year later and spend thousands of dollars to renovate a perfectly good classroom. Employees have said that classroom items such as custom lockers and bulletin boards cost $20,000 per room - money that should be going toward students directly (or even other public schools!) The network office is just as terrible as schools. They break you down, but don't build you back up. A lot of people go to HR about issues and HR does nothing. In fact, they often force the victim to meet with the accused employee face to face, instead of protecting and supporting them. There is a lot of victim blaming here. Management has openly bragged about managing with fear. If you make any mistake, you are treated like a murderer. Long office hours. Staff is required to be available by phone 24/7. Most people end up rolling over their vacation because its too stressful to leave work for an extended period of time - either due to extensive work load or because management makes you feel terrible. You will only get a promotion if you do what they say and keep your mouth shut. If you are liked by management, you will move up quickly. Most of leadership is in their 20's - started off as teachers and are now directors. They don't care about experience, they want sheep -easily-led people who do what Success says and keep their head down and mouths shut. Follow the herd or be slaughtered. Success is 100% a cult. Drink the kool-aid and you'll be successful. Refuse to drink the kool-aid and you'll be kicked out. Success brags about how great and successful they are but turn a blind eye to how they treat their kids and employees.

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.