Achievement First reviews

Working here is a lot of hard work - but if you know that you have to define what sustainability means for you you will be successful.

It is very easy to get burned out working here. The unwritten, unofficial expectation is that you work incredibly long hours, both after school and on the weekends. I spent 3 years at AF and couldn't imagine having to be there another minute. The long hours and days aren't conducive to a long term career there, especially if you want to start and have a family. The people there try to tell you otherwise, but don't believe it. I have never been so exhausted and overwhelmed from working at a place. The emails from leadership are constant and will come at 8:00 at night and on Saturdays and Sundays. You can never really shut off from working here. Leadership is very inexperienced and lacks a lot of education knowledge. Many administrators spent about 5 years in the classroom, did not go through formal education training...and it shows. For some reason, there is too fast a track to get good teachers out of the classroom and into administration. Leaders are trained internally and do not get nearly enough of what they need to be really impactful. There is little room to be outspoken and challenge organizational and school practices and beliefs. I found that those who did so were either shunned or pushed out. There is hubris that is pervasive throughout the organization's leadership and an unwillingness to openly admit to teachers that the network still has much work to do.