Pros
The teaching staff is wonderful. Working remotely is also great!
Cons
Let me start by saying that 4 years ago, GCA was the BEST place to work. Many changes have occurred, mostly in the last 2 years which have made GCA go from best to worst! There are meetings almost every day during planning periods. We have SO many tasked piled on that we typically work through lunch and on weekends. There is NO flexibility, PTO is limiting (lots of blackout WEEKS), mundane tasks that pull teachers away from the kids. The kids are tested every 4-5 weeks even in elementary school. The grading policy is a JOKE and teachers get NO say so in this. Curriculum requests are constantly changing, and teachers are just told that now the kids will have another district required assessment, on top of district required projects and Interim assessments...IN elementary school. Supervisors typically answer questions with, 'the answer is forthcoming' or 'let me check on that' and they don't get back to you with answers. The pay is low, summers are 6 weeks with required travel to PD for a full week. The PD is typically just time fillers and useless. New teachers are not taught how to navigate the programs but thrown in. IEP meetings typically start at 3:30, the same time the last class ends, and go past 5pm, cutting into personal time. That time is not compensated. The head of school is an absolute joke. She does not care about anything other than money and how much of it she can get in funding. She does not add those to teacher salaries. She is not an educator. The lack of support has teachers drowning daily.
