Non Profit Industrial Complex at its Finest; absolutely no boundaries - Administrative Kauffman School Employee Review

Despite apparent short-term success in its mission to see all Kauffman students graduate from college, from an employee standpoint this is not an environment conducive to maintaining good mental, social and physical well-being. If you are truly passionate about equity and social justice, understand that they will sell you a very strong pitch as they've figured out what to say and how to say it to reel you in. Aside from working 12 hour days on average, communication styles are often toxic and degrading (especially if you've become an "odd" one; someone who demonstrates distaste for unwarranted military style discipline with weak justifications for why such a student culture exists, particularly one that would not be upheld in a predominately white school). It makes sense that this would be the prevailing style of communication because everyone is overworked and stressed out for reasons that could be ameliorated if the culture and priorities were to shift in a major way. If you have other life priorities that aren't your job title, such as family, side jobs, etc, expect to make significant sacrifices or simply avoid this place altogether. Again, if you are truly passionate about making your work oriented to social justice, take some time to examine how embedded the school is within the wider community. They aren't... unless you count one off volunteer days at local non-profits as "community involvement". They will most likely tell you that they have strong relationships with parents and take their input, but I implore you to do some research on the Kauffman School's perception within the wider community. The Kauffman School has created an environment that is closed off and they've done so intentionally with minimal oversight likely because their outputs are arguably the best in the state of Missouri. There are many hypocritical practices and statements that were made during my time at the School. One that is most glaring is the concept of "built to last" and the fact that highest management could openly state that taking time to go be with friends and community elsewhere is extremely important to them so they do so liberally, while PTO requests from teachers were often denied despite PTO being the right of an employee to take. Their policy at least at the time is that PTO requests must be made 6 weeks in advance. This is due largely in part to the fact that they do not have adequate dedicated staff or a system in place for substitute teachers to step in when teachers need to be away. It seems to be organization wide practice to hire people (teachers and admin) for a certain focus area or job duty and assign tasks that are either irrelevant and/or almost comically beneath the level of education and training highlighted during a prospective employee's interview and hiring process. There is a cult-like (their words) attitude in upholding "student" and "adult" culture that is often both overtly and inadvertently racist on a systemic level. If and when you are able to broach this subject in their form of "feedback" expect to have your words twisted, misunderstood and thrown back at you along the lines of: "I hear you but, what I need you to do now is..." If you have a high tolerance for poor forms of communication, extreme levels of micromanagement, petty displays of power, and situations in which you take publicized fall for outcomes that were demonstrably not your fault, all combined with a higher than above average patience then perhaps there is an avenue to change things from inside, but that is an extremely long and arduous game and most likely not worth it given the amount of time you have to spend there on a daily basis (including weekends). If you have gone through Teach for America, you are more than likely going to be in a position to get promoted and receive more desirable work assignments, and it's no mere coincidence that all non-instructional upper management have gone through TFA and were white women during my time. This may have changed in the months following my departure, though this is unlikely. What is probably most disturbing is one particular tactic management tends to use: attempting to gather very personal information about staff to use both positively and negatively as an asset for the benefit of management, deployed either positively or negatively toward staff. Inappropriate and extremely personal questions were sometimes asked in the form of "bonding" between managers. There were also "opportunities" to share your "story" between staff members and "team building". Beware. Any sensitive information you share can and absolutely will be used against you as soon especially if you question practices or otherwise behave differently from what they expect. If you become "too emotional" when given these false opportunities to speak your story in your words, or if you are questioning a practice regarding sensitive situations it will come back to you as feedback in the form of "concerns about professionalism". Ultimately management is more concerned with having unfettered access to staff with staff being as polite as possible, while management is able to be as disrespectful, vague, opaque, rude and undermining when and if they decide it is "necessary". This is the case in a lot of organizations, but it is particularly poignant at Kauffman because of the values they purport to uphold.