Achievement First reviews

I’m sorry to see this was your experience. As a former school leader, I always cared about my team “walking the walk” during our PD and living the expectations we held for our kids -- but I totally agree it’s a fine line. Certainly the point or intention is not to talk down to the team. Even more troubling was your feeling that a lack of trust was directed particularly to the teachers of color. The bottom line is that we need MORE teachers who share the racial and/or socio-economic background of our scholars and it’s even more important to us that they have a fundamentally empowering and positive experience in our schools. When we survey our employees across the organization, one of the things that we look for is whether there is a gap between our black, latino and multi-racial team members and those who do not identify as BLM and I’m proud to say that our focus on D & I and a lot of strong work by many school teams has allowed to us close that gap over the last three years. Today, on average, there is no gap in how our teachers report feeling along those lines of races. But there are some schools where gaps persist -- and gaps at the leadership level, including along lines of gender. More must be done. And if you’re open to discussing your experience, I would love to find out more to continue figuring out how we can improve (tomkaiser@achievementfirst.org). -Tom Kaiser, Chief Talent Officer

Thanks for taking the time to provide the honest and candid feedback above. I appreciate you showing the love to our school operations teams. Too many teachers across the country are still buying their own pencils and making copy runs. We believe that strong ops teams, when able to focus on all non-instructional projects in the building, allow teachers to put their full weight and brain power into being intellectually prepared and planned for rigorous lessons. Ensuring our students with disabilities and our English Language Learners succeed is top of mind for us as well, and we are taking steps to get it right. Our schools are prioritizing hiring dedicated special educators and ELL teachers to work with students who need extra support. We also offer a scholarship for general educators who desire to become special educators (because we know there just aren’t enough great special educators!). Additionally, next year we are opening a specialized, intensive program to help our most struggling scholars - AF Bushwick Empower Program. Empower will be a specialized program within a school with around 36 scholars and 8 teachers. Students will receive tailored academic support in small groups with qualified special education teachers. We’re confident that this new program will give our students with disabilities the instruction they need to reach their fullest potential. We are excited about the innovative approach we are taking with special education, but we don’t pretend to know all the answers. We do, though, know that we are making strides to ensure that every single one of our scholars can achieve. Thanks again for sharing your feedback! -Christina Braganza, Vice President, Team Special Services