Pros
good benefits driven workers intelligent workers work from home provide a service to kids that might otherwise be unavailable Great professional development opportunities
Cons
working nonstop no union no real vacation coverage ever changing policies Dollar driven versus students' best interest little division between personal and professional life Your house need to become as quiet as a library I have spent the last four years working here. Year one was decent. Year two was full of rule changes and by year three I hit the wall. Now, I think that I am just nuts in year four. This job will suck the life out of you. Your phone will ring all the time. You will never be able to enjoy a dinner out without your constant do to list running through your mind. The demands are unreal leaving you to constantly chase your tail as you will never finish. There is no alpha, no omega. Vacations are not really vacations because you will return to a mess when you return. You must find another overworked teacher to grade for you if you do go away. However, you will still need to return hundreds of calls (yes, literally) when you return. Most teachers opt not to take a vacation or wind up working during that time. By the end of summer you are so burnt out and then you get slammed again with tons of kids. There is no catching your breath to reflect upon anything that you did ever. This is not good practice for any field, especially teaching. How can you get better without time to reflect and make changes? Do I value a lot of what I learned in this job? Yes! The professional opportunities are absolutely wonderful and I have worked with some amazing kids and educators over the past four years. A lot of students benefit from the services that FLVS provides. However, what was once cutting edge has now been surpassed and I am ready to return to my roots in the classroom. Education needs not to be about "credit goals" (a.k.a. sales quotas) but about true learning and a student gains. As for personal three children I want more quality time than the quanitity of preoccupied time that they are getting now. Hopefully, my husband too will forgive me for ignoring him over the past four years as I have been so preoccupied with the good of the school. Teachers thinking to get out of brick and mortar, don't do it. You finish at 3ish, have real vacations and summers off. The impact that you are making upon students in person will not be replicated online no matter what they tell you.