Pros
The Rhode Island region of AF is still fairly new, our first elementary school in RI opened in August of 2013. I have worked at one of the elementary schools for three years. -I know that my leadership team (deans & principal) care about me as a person. I know they have my back in good moments and in tough ones. They understand why I do the work I do, and they know that I do my work with the best of intentions. In short, they trust my judgment. -I have many fellow teachers that I can turn to if I have an academic, behavioral or other question about how to better support a scholar or group of scholars. We also have many conversations about how to have a stronger adult culture. We practice tough conversations and what are the best ways to support each other through rough moments throughout the school year. -We are continuously reviewing data and trying to make learning stronger for our team. We talk through action steps together to improve our teaching and scholars learning. -We are really working towards how to make the school environment better for our scholars. This year we had some tough conversations about our behavioral system and how we need to ground interactions with children in an “everything from love” frame of mind.
Cons
-There are quite a few staff members involved in decision making and, in some instances, it is nice to have many minds come together but, in other situations it can take a good amount of time to make decisions. Our jobs are fast paced and sometimes going up the line with a decision can feel like forever and can cause some frustration. -Our kiddos take A LOT of assessments; I love data as much as the next teacher, but sometimes it feels like just too much. I also feel we should spend some time checking in with children about some testing anxieties. -I also find that scholars are not always able to completely dive into subjects because the topics are changing quickly. I would love to see more student guided learning across subjects. -Sometimes I worry about how much time children have time to be kids when we are in school for so long and the behavioral expectations are so high. I feel like this is an area we are working on and I wish that parents were more involved in these conversations.