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Kids Science Labs

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Kids Science Labs reviews

3.1

48% would recommend to a friend

(38 total reviews)

Keith Norsym & Shegan Campbell

59% approve of CEO

38% positive business outlook

Kids Science Labs has an employee rating of 3.1 out of 5 stars, based on 38 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The Kids Science Labs employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Education industry (3.7 stars).

Reviews by job title

38 reviews
2.0
Dec 1, 2020
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

I always had an amazing, supportive team that kept me working here for 4 years. The families and the children you meet through teaching here are wonderful experiences you will most certainly treasure forever. You truly do feel like you're making a difference through education, but it's not enough to stay. I only gave this company 2 stars because of the families you get to meet and the teammates you get to work with.

Cons

It’s a lot to digest, but it’s worth a read if you’re seriously considering working here: -Being committed to the company for 2+ years doesn't mean anything to them. Don't expect a professional or celebrated farewell, they like to keep your exit a secret from the rest of the company or they try to twist it in a way to make them look better. We often found out someone left or got let go through word of mouth. -It's a revolving door of employees, there's always someone new being hired on because many veteran staff members are leaving to do bigger and better things with their lives. Even one of the upper management staff members left and she had a great position within the company. -They don’t have a good sense of work/life balance. -They started making salaried employees clock in and out because they seem to have trust issues with their employees. -They had good intentions to make teachers’ lives easier, but ultimately that backfired on them so now they make everyone do extra work for their poor decision making. -The founders can’t seem to let go of their need to control everything. I understand it’s their company that they started, but they need to be better at delegating the work and trusting others to get the job done efficiently. They actually hired someone who has really great experience with helping businesses grow, but they’re not even letting him do his job, so why are you paying him a salary if you don’t even want to take his advice? -Upper management seems to be threatened by people with good ideas because they’re not their own. They say they want feedback, but don’t like being challenged when they think someone else has a good idea. -They don’t handle conflict or communication as well as they think they do. -Upper management will try to psychoanalyze everything you say so be careful on how you approach them with sensitive topics. -Like many of the other truthful, genuine reviews left on here, they all hit it right on the nose when they say it’s a “yes” man type of culture. If you drink the Kool-Aid you’ll do alright, but if not, it’ll be a challenge for you. It’s hard to be a teacher when you feel like you can’t be yourself and vent about your day with your teammates. Being a teacher is a tough job and kids can be tricky to work with sometimes. -There’s a weird, fake positivity that goes around that upper management is trying to keep up. You can feel how hard they’re trying to be overly positive about everything instead of being real human beings. -There’s no proper HR, the founders are the “HR representatives” so if you have sensitive issues about the company, policies, or about them, good luck getting help. -The concept of KSL is great on paper, but it’s not a well executed concept. They opened up too many centers too fast, so they will let go or fire employees to save money and then hire cheaper help. At first their philosophy was to hire experienced professionals with a degree, but now they’re just looking for anyone who is willing to work for cheap and is decent with kids. -They make promises that they can’t keep and don’t expect an annual review every year. They only do them if it’s convenient for them or you can request an informal one. -Meetings are way too long! Most of the employees think they just like to hear themselves talk. It’s very evident on every zoom meeting that nobody wants to be there for over an hour. -Your hard earned PTO doesn’t get to be used how you want at times. Because there are NO substitutes for their teachers, if you take any time off, you’ll end up feeling bad for leaving your team with more work. They might even ask you to change your requested days off if it’s not convenient for them. -Before COVID, they used to crowd our already small classrooms just to make the extra buck, not really taking into account the stress it puts on the teachers and staff. Silver lining of COVID is that it keeps the numbers in check.

1.0
Oct 31, 2018

Don't Do It!

Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Co-workers (for the most part) are genuinely awesome people that work really hard and make work fun. Their mission is well-meaning, but so, so poorly executed in so many different ways.

Cons

Easily the most disappointing work experience I have ever had. What other reviewers have said about needing to "drink the cool-aid," management being paranoid and micro-managers, favorite employees being openly treated differently etc. are right on. The only way to be successful here is to be a "Yes" person and allow management to take advantage of you and your time and even then it depends on how much they like you personally. Management knows absolutely nothing about education and is not open to suggestions from people that do. They claim to be open to suggestions about how to make the business operate better, but in reality they become extremely defensive and feel threatened. I have seen MANY valuable and dedicated employees let go or pushed out for sharing suggestions that management felt threatened by or didn't agree with. High stress environment even when it doesn't need to be. Management will talk negatively about employees to everyone except for the employee they have issue with, creating a very toxic work environment. Expectations are rarely clear, but you will be held responsible for not living up to them. Co-founders seem like decent people at first, but they are unreasonable, narcissistic, arrogant, and erratic. Classes are recycled over and over and more than one parent has complained about paying for "new" classes that are not actually new. I also have an issue with the amount of waste created for the take-home projects. Kids are given SO MUCH plastic to use to build their projects that is then covered in duct tape and thrown away not long after they get home.

1.0
Sep 4, 2018

KSL puts the 'cult' in 'culture'

Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

The kids are truly amazing. Experiments are fun. If you're at the right location you will have fun coworkers.

Cons

Management spends 100% of their time dissecting employees every move and waiting for them to mess up. They claim to be a forward-thinking, feedback-centered company, however, anyone with a dissenting opinion is quickly discredited or fired. Management is generally arrogant and likes to surround themselves with kiss ups. Turn over is crazy high, for good reason.

Viewing 4 - 6 of 38 Reviews

Glassdoor has 40 Kids Science Labs reviews submitted anonymously by Kids Science Labs employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if Kids Science Labs is right for you.