Pros
- "All - Star" team of teachers! Absolutely some of the best teacher co-workers you could ask for. - Wonderful students and families to work with! Many kids have switched schools several times, so the change to the K12 way of doing things doesn't bother them. Parents are told from the beginning that they will have to be heavily involved in their child's education and they're always willing to do that. Parents are very supportive of classroom teachers (versus administrators, whom they tend to distrust). - Teach from home. This means avoiding any stress related to dressing professionally, etc. you might have as a regular classroom teacher. K12 gives you everything you need to set up a home office to teach from. That includes reimbursing you for part of your Internet bill each month. They have excellent IT people to help you with any computer or equipment problems you have. - Creative use of technology. Classes are taught using an online virtual meeting program called Elluminate Live! Students click on a link that takes them to your virtual classroom when it's time for class to start. Teachers can use Power Point, send handouts or worksheets to students as .pdf or .doc files, have students use microphones to participate in class discussions, show videos, or have the whole class explore a website simultaneously. Lots of room to use technology in creative ways.
Cons
- Curriculum doesn't match state academic standards. Most students transfer from public schools 1 to 2 years behind with a history of poor academic performance at their "home" school. K12 curriculum is about 1 year ahead of the state recommended content for each grade. Teachers work hard to make sure students learn the K12 specified content for their grade level. But, the student's state test scores will always be poor. - Tons of overtime with no extra pay. Starting salary is competitive with local public schools, but K12 will ask you to be available nearly 24/ 7. Parents call your company - supplied home office phone weekdays, weekends, and at any time of day or evening. Your work week can easily surpass 50 - 60 hours. 12 - hour days are the norm. They will also send you "K mails" (their internal E mail system) seven days a week. Teachers get enough K mail on the weekend that they have to read and answer it or they'll already be behind Monday and won't have time to catch up by Friday. - High teacher turnover. Teachers burn out within a year and leave because they're trying to add to lessons so students learn content they didn't understand from past years. I've known several teachers to leave before the end of their 90 - day probationary period due to the stress of working so many hours a week and still not being able to get everything done. - Business - oriented atmosphere. Less focus on the curriculum and improving instruction and more on finances, corporate incentives to try to increase enrollment, and changes to their Online Learning System (OLS). - Unfair teacher evaluation system. School principals aren't trained administrators. Most were teachers who were promoted from within and haven't been given adequate training before being given a principal-ship. You won't know what's on the teacher evaluation form until you've been evaluated once. The administrator is supposed to observe more than one class before evaluating your performance, but that rarely happens because they are so busy. Upper management asks them to do several jobs at once to try and save money. - Frequent reassignments. I've known many teachers who were told they were being moved to an entirely different grade level or subject several times in a school year. K12 expects you to drop whatever you were teaching, let someone else take over, and get your new class over a weekend! You may be teaching 9th grade English on Friday, but by Monday you're expected to be ready to teach a whole new class of 10th grade Science students (if you're licensed to teach multiple subjects). This means almost no continuity of instruction for students (and, very upset parents who will rightfully demand answers you can't provide). - No extracurriculars to speak of. If you like coaching or sponsoring clubs to get to know your students as young people, there's no opportunity for teachers to do that. Typically, parents get together and organize clubs and events based on the region of the state they live in. The school only sponsors one time activities like back - to - school events and science fair.
