KIPP MA reviews

KIPP Lynn high school is the prime example of what's wrong with charter schools. Suspension rates are high, 90% of kids are POC, teachers are predominantly white, administration must push all students to graduate and enter college regardless of their preferences, students "hate this school," mediocre starting pay of $45k for a 7-5pm job, no teacher unions as part of charter network, high teacher turnover rates of nearly 50% per year, administration doesn't understand how to manage teachers respectfully, frequent schedule changes and last minute responsibilities including during and after school duties for all teachers. "No excuses" is a KIPPism.

- leadership lacks foresight, skill, professionalism, communication, follow through - 'leadership' engage in workplace bullying - principal is supposed to be responsible for academics but has no academic vision of expectations, and places focus on addressing only behaviors as her primary goal - their training sets a low precedent for teachers, is very basic, actively discourages differentiation for diverse learners and approach that is inherently discriminatory, and assumes one singular standard of success which is test scores - they confuse micromanaging and hovering as 'teacher development' - the principals and assistant principals admit to having poor behavior management skills and try to deflect that on incoming new staff - they offer no useful professional development that will make you better - they assign 'mentors' whom are less competent than you "to support you"which actually becomes or doubles with their bullying practices - they respect and appreciate people whom engage in more punitive behavioral approaches; they have very low standards efficacy - they give a talk on why its important to plan, but then the principal has no academic plans and tries to obfuscate all efforts to plan ahead of time and cultivate purposeful and preventative techniques - obsessed with Doug Lemov, do not allow for other behavioral management tools even if they are data-driven - principal brags about lacking emotional control and reinforces racist attitudes towards students while proclaiming to to try to be anti-racist - complete disregard for the arts even though they are claiming to - the AP willfully and purposefully withholds information - the director of leadership training is a nasty bully who encourages abelism towards students, discourages differentiation, and is severely unapproachable despite being the person in charge of mentoring and directing leadership development, thereby modeling exclusivity and lack of team work - principal ignores student voice and mislabels children as 'problems' when they are self advocates - principal takes issue with and is antagonistic about teachers who want to know her expectations, communicative, collaborate, organized and professionalism; she prefers people who kiss up to her and are unprofessional; she announced antagonistically 'I can't believe some people are asking for information.." despite the fact the fact that the title is "knowledge is power' the work culture she establishes is one where knowledge is withheld, micromanaged, undermined, meet with antagonism, and dependent on ideologies that are inherently inequitable