Kauffman School reviews

Let me take you on a journey through the toughest two years of my life. Hopefully you can live vicariously through my experience and spare yourself the trauma to come. I remember waking up at 1:00 am most nights, horrified and drenched in sweat at the mere thought that I might’ve overslept and missed a 6:30 am meeting or call. My stomach and spine had contrived a quite familiar relationship-- since they were always touching one another, as I was unable to enjoy lunch or leave the premises for anything conducive to my well-being. Yet somehow, I still managed to pack on an unhealthy stress induced 15 pounds. When I first heard the term “built to last” I assumed that it was some sick version of military style initiation that prepared one to work, and try to thrive, in some of the most harrowing corporate environments. Afterall, this is all I knew working at Kauffman School. To my surprise, it was the complete opposite. But how? How could “built to last” be anything more than verbal abuse coupled with demeaning down speak, cult-like procedures, color-coded growth opportunities, empty threats and blanketed lies to sheath the truth – leadership incompetency. I’ve witnessed first-hand, people get told that their input was foolish, to “shut-up” in meetings, get berated for opting to actually teach students instead of chastise them for running their fingers through their hair or resting their chin on their palm. Putting all the 5th-11th grade students in five of the worst zip codes in Kansas City in one school that promises to get them to and through college looks like a noble undertaking, doesn’t it? What if I told you that those same students who often have concerns about where they’ll sleep some nights, or how they’ll manage to complete homework while working a night job, get plagued on a daily basis for not walking with their hands by their sides, using sign language to speak to one another in the hallway, demerited for not sitting a certain way or speaking in a certain manner? Would it still seem as morale? Then, to endure all of this without acknowledgement of the trauma or foundational frustrations outside of school is counterproductive at best. And to anyone who is employed under such strict standards and disagrees with the aforementioned discipline tactics – you are blackballed, dismissed, degraded verbally in meetings and, blatantly put, bullied. “Well why don’t you leave?” is something I’m sure you’re contemplating. Leaving is merely half the battle. I’ve laid eyes on “action plans” that the CEO and others in leadership devised to retain employees that appear to be contemplating redemption. In these action plans, leadership utilizes everyone at the school whom you may think are “friends” and truly care about your well-being against you as a manipulative ploy to get you to stay. They’ll employ people to inquire about your dating and love life, sponsor happy hours, appear to give you this mirage-like pillar of support—which in reality is just the cyanide that cripples the logical decision you made to move on in the first place. So here you are, constantly looking over your shoulder, because there are eyes everywhere. You find yourself the recipient of gifts you never asked for, but you take them anyway to be “courteous” and soon you forget why you were going to leave “Disneyland” in the first place. But much like Disneyland – you’ve entered the dimension of make-believe and just as soon as you get comfortable the abuse returns. It’s like a scary movie where the antagonist merely keeps you alive only to experience your internal death over and over and over again. A hamster wheel of degradation, manipulation and delusions. Word of advice: decline the interview…. unless you are a single, CIS, asexual white woman, under 40 with no desire for children and a stomach for subordination. If you are a current employee please know you deserve better, you are capable and the grass is indeed greener on the other side, especially compared to a place where the grass doesn’t grow at all.

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.