Where do I even begin? At the time of hire, teachers are told that their schedules will be built up to full time--this rarely happens. If a teacher does approach 40 teaching hours per week (which only happens to a select few) it doesn't usually last for more than a couple of months, as some students complete their courses or withdraw/cancel a class, so your hours drop back down. It is impossible to plan for the future, as you can never really rely on a consistent income.
Speaking of consistent income, there is almost no paid time off whatsoever--even for those teachers who do consistently work more than 30 hours per week.
By the way, when I say "work" I really just mean paid teaching hours. You see, according to the administration, teachers shouldn't need to prep for our courses, because we are provided the necessary curriculum documents like course summary, study guides, etc. and that combined with our mastery of the subject we're teaching, that should be plenty of "preparation". Ahh, but when you are working with 5-6 different students, who each have a combination of various learning differences and emotional disorders, and the whole selling point of the school is INDIVIDUALIZED instruction, you quickly realize that prep is, indeed, necessary. Yet, despite numerous complaints and requests, the most we've been able to get is 1 extra hour of paid prep after 15 hours of teaching, and we don't get to use that if we had a student cancellation during those 15 hours.
Oh, and those curriculum guides and study guides and the tests that we are required to use with our students? Many of them are inaccurate, poorly written and poorly designed, riddled with errors, and are usually a piss-poor excuse of a way to assess whether or not a student actually understands anything they've been taught beyond rote memorization.
Ahhh and then, there is the "politics". The administration team seems to function based purely on emotions and feelings--and the most toxic, psychologically unstable of them appear to be rewarded the most. One administrator in particular seems to continually get rewarded with promotions and raises--now 2nd in command at her campus--despite YEARS of multiple faculty coming forward and complaining to directors about bullying, retaliation, inappropriate and unprofessional behavior, and realistically, questionable competency as well. This person was, for years, charged to generate nearly ALL of the curriculum for both campuses, across ALL subjects, without allowing ANY input from the teachers who actually teach those subjects. This person has continually blamed others for her own mistakes, and attempts to deflect any negative attention by turning it around on others.
I could keep going, but honestly, just trust me and run like hell.
The only people who probably would be happy teaching in this place are very young, inexperienced professionals who just want a bit of teaching/tutoring experience before they move on to the next stage of their career, and maybe who don't need to rely on this job to pay their rent or bills.
