teacher

elementary school teacher

high school teacher

substitute

special education teacher

KIPP Schools

This was, without question, the worst teaching job I have ever had. While the school's mission is admirable and many teachers genuinely care about students, the day-to-day reality made it an extremely difficult place to work.

Typical day at work:
Every day was highly scripted and micromanaged. Teachers were expected to follow prescribed lessons, complete extensive documentation, manage significant behavioral challenges, and respond to constant observations and feedback. There was very little autonomy to use professional judgment, even for experienced educators.

What I learned:
I learned how important trust and professional autonomy are to an effective school culture. I also gained experience working with students who faced significant academic and behavioral challenges, but I left with a greater appreciation for schools that empower teachers rather than control every aspect of instruction.

Management:
Management demonstrated very little trust in the professionals they hired. Coaching often felt one-sided rather than collaborative, with coaches who appeared more interested in delivering feedback than listening to the teachers they were supposed to support. Administrative support for student behavior was inconsistent or, at times, nonexistent, leaving teachers to manage difficult situations largely on their own. There was also little sense of job security, creating an environment where many staff members felt they were constantly under scrutiny.

Workplace culture:
The school culture was unhealthy for both staff and students. There was little joy in the building, and the emphasis on compliance often overshadowed relationships, creativity, and authentic learning. Morale among teachers was noticeably low, and the constant pressure contributed to stress and burnout.

The hardest part of the job:
The hardest part was trying to meet unrealistic expectations while receiving limited support. Balancing significant behavioral challenges, constant micromanagement, and the feeling that professional expertise was neither trusted nor valued made the job emotionally and professionally exhausting.

The most enjoyable part of the job:
The students were the best part of the experience. Despite the challenges, many students were resilient, curious, and rewarding to teach. I also worked alongside dedicated colleagues who cared deeply about their students and did everything they could to help them succeed despite the system they were working within.

I would not recommend this school to educators who value professional autonomy, collaborative leadership, or a positive workplace culture. The mission is inspiring, but in my experience, the leadership practices and organizational culture make it a difficult place to teach and to build a long-term career.

A typical day at work involves you coming in early, prepping your class unless you did it last night, setting out morning work and getting ready to greet the kids.  You have morning meeting, and lessons then lunch, which you have to supervise daily, there is no rotating schedule, this is your lunch.  You have one special(art, science, social studies, music, computers, pe), throughout the day and then more lessons.  You will have a prep period which is usually occupied with meetings with your manager or the principal, students or other ream members, there is hardly any prepping here, that happens at night.  You finish afternoon classes and then dismiss students for the evening.  Again you have to wait until your last kid is dismissed, no teacher can leave until 4:30.  Did I mention extended school day and year, you have like 4 weeks of summer vacation if you are lucky. Wednesdays are staff meetings until 6pm, additional team meeting on Tuesdays until.  Other week days are spent on prepping, planning and grading.  One Saturday a month you have to be available for field lessons, but these are actually nice you get to see the kids relaxed and as kids.

I did learn plenty of cool teaching and organization techniques that I now implement in my current class and the results are amazing.  However I did not learn them from my manager but rather other teachers.  The resources they have are amazing, and the tools they utilize are awesome.  I continue to utilize them such as NY Engage, to help me understand common core math better, or Lexia to help my low readers flourish.  I am even having my boss look into leveled readers from P and F because they are great at assessing students reading level and encouraging them to push themselves.  If you are learning a new job, they will send you away for a week or two during the summer to train, and the training is worth it, if only there was follow through.

My coworkers, helped make this trip bearable.  They are great at showing you cool ways to do stuff and fun to hang out with outside of school as their is not much to do in the Delta, so you have to drive to South Haven, Memphis or Little Rock.  But these relationships and fun times with the kids will make your day,   

The hardest part of the job is dealing with children who may be developmentally disabled, or have behavioral problems and they don't have IEP's in place, there is no support from management, or counselors or behavioral interventionist like most schools have.  Imagine trying to wrangle 28 kids and still tackle behaviors, and differentiate instruction.  Very difficult.  (Yes the classes are crowded).

As a dean, you will be helping with arrival, dismissal, lunch and recess. My main priorities were behavioral response and MTSS supports for social emotional needs. Though not a social worker, I was expected to run point on FBAs and BIPs my first two years. I enjoyed the vision which was focused on whole child supports which included tier one social emotional instruction. Some teachers were getting hurt by students and then gaslit that it was their classroom management. The hardest part working here was working with unqualified administrators. We have five assistant principals for ECE-4 and they do not have the right qualifications. We have leaders who have not even taught before.  If they like you and you know the right people at the home office, you will get promoted. A big part of why I chose to move on was the amount of physical harm that students were allowed to do towards other students and staff. At one point in the year, I was making 15+ calls a day to let a guardian know their student had been injured.  I did love the Family Friday Meetings which was an assembly every week. I loved having a one to one with my incredible manager to be developed and receive feedback. I liked that there was a structured MTSS process but did not like that it was so heavily focused on academics and not social emotional supports. Parents would request IEP and 504 evaluations and we would try to talk them out of it because they wouldn’t qualify. There was a system for everything which felt nice but did not work or drive results in reality. Also, as a dean here, you work the same amount of days as the principal but don’t get the same perks or pay. For example, assistant principals and principals don’t have to submit PTO unless it’s a full day off but deans do even though we worked the same amount of days.  I would not recommend working here if you are a creative problem solver or want to do the right thing for kids. 


I have been a teacher for over 5 years and this was my first year in Chicago. My licensure was not confirmed due to back up at the ISBE, so I decided to try charter. This is where we found KIPP Chicago; I left within three months. I felt toxic positivity from the beginning. I explained in my interview I needed to have balance between work and home and even questioned on how they work on that. They were vague on the answers, but tried to stay positive and took the job. There were many meetings and advice on HOW to teach, but never what. I did not get any help with attendance, grade entering, or the programs we use with the students. I began working until 8 pm on week nights and it still was not enough to cover the work I needed to get done for my curriculum partner. I asked others how they balanced time, but everyone I did talk to explained they were in the same boat as me. I then had to start working weekends if I wanted to keep up with the demand; I refused. I started to get behind and the work continued to pile on as the year progressed. The school would add incentives or other ideas that would add time on our schedule without having time to implement correctly. I also had 50% of the prep time I had taken away for other meetings. We get a 10 minute lunch because we had to help with the behavior in the lunch room. One of the biggest reasons I left as well is because I felt they touched and redirected the kids with their hands too much. Unless you are breaking up a fight, I don't believe you should have to physically move or touch a student. When I put in my two weeks, I was met with push back and even was told, "I won't be putting this into HR yet....we should talk about it more." 

Lastly, HR never emailed back timely and when I tried to ask for a phone call or in person discussion, I never got a response back. 

The day starts at 7:30 am, with smiling (and grumpy) faced students coming in to eat breakfast and do a quick review sheet. Soon after morning announcements, they leave for the first class of the day as another class comes in for the first transition. 3 hours and two transitions later, we take the students to their daily integrals (P.E., Music, Art). Then they have lunch and recess and return to their third class. With a final transition, the home class returns for the last lessons of the day before eating supper and getting ready for dismissal. We ensure the students get safely on their buses and either meet up for afternoon meetings with other staff members or make sure we are ready with the next days materials. 

I have learned a lot about classroom management, small group reading intervention, co-teaching, and parent-teacher relationships these past few years. My co-workers are like part of my family - we support each other and allow for necessary venting in order to keep our sanity, but we try to stay positive and keep the students' needs in mind. The hardest part of the job is trying to meet all of the expectations set by Leadership - track everything, prevent fights, demand 100%, monitor hall activity, escort scholars everywhere, grades, recess duty, scholar study, call parents, help with recruitment, use timers, create anchor charts, have energy! But it is so worth it when you see a student who was struggling finally understand, or they come to give you a hug because they'll miss you over the weekend. I think coming to work for KIPP was one of the best decisions and I believe in what they are trying to accomplish.


I recently had the displeasure of working with KIPP NOLA, and it was an experience I wouldn't wish upon my worst enemy. The management at this company is not only faulty but downright incompetent.

First and foremost, the micromanagement culture is suffocating. It felt like every move I made was scrutinized under a microscope. Forget about autonomy or creativity; you're expected to follow orders blindly without any room for innovation or personal input. It's demoralizing and utterly draining.

Communication within the company is abysmal, thanks to the top-down approach favored by management. Important decisions are made behind closed doors, leaving employees in the dark and feeling disconnected from the company's goals. Any attempt to voice concerns or suggest improvements is met with dismissiveness or, worse, reprimand.

The lack of trust from management seeps into every aspect of the workplace. Constant surveillance, both physical and digital, makes you feel like you're under constant surveillance. It's as if they expect you to mess up at any moment, and they're just waiting for an opportunity to pounce.

Moreover, the management's incompetence is matched only by their arrogance. They refuse to acknowledge their own shortcomings and are quick to blame employees for any issues that arise. There's no accountability, no sense of responsibility for the toxic environment they've created.

In conclusion, unless you enjoy being treated like a mindless drone and having every aspect of your work life controlled by inept managers, steer clear of KIPP NOLA. Save yourself the stress and frustration and look elsewhere for employment.

I think my experiences and skill sets are appreciated. With that being said, the PD each year fills your head with false positivity and brainwash you into submission about how we should be teaching. They promote a culture of “over-collaboration” so nothing gets accomplished because no one has any time to process anything. You are burnt out before the school year starts.
The leadership team is groomed from a young age and promoted fast. They don’t have experience and are kids themselves. Everything they say is a practiced line from a book or a PD session they attended. It’s so fake, they can’t even fake it. If that makes sense. They micro manage everyone, included teachers that have been there for years and have great data. They write unprofessional emails, they promote transparency, but if you are honest, they dismiss you. This tells me they have no trust, yet they promote “we are a family,” 
There are also handfuls of petty practices: If you are not smiling and greeting colleagues, they will let you know. They will praise colleagues in emails and “encourage” you to do the same. They will “encourage” you to give cheers to others. It’s high school stuff and lacks authenticity. 
The irony is, they promote diversity, but they want you to comply. It’s unclear and oppressive. 
They spend 70% of the PD talking about inspiring kids, but they don’t do the same to teachers. We know, nothing comes from forcing. The good data will come if they inspire instead of having PD led by passive-aggressive staff members. 
The kids are amazing. If KIPP spent more time on the leadership team that is seasoned, NOW, they would be different.

I was so excited to start working for this company because I believed in their mission, they seemed to be really professional and organized and total compensation seemed awesome. However, my experience working here was terrible. I was always unhappy from the beginning of professional development, up until my last day. 

Work was really intense. Your day starts off at 7AM-- running around making copies, prepping for class, etc. Then you work with very challenging students (most with behavior issues). I have had to stop a few fights in and out of the classroom. Some of the students do not have respect for the staff and would often act up and curse. There were hardly any repercussions, so students didn't mind acting up. Lunch time is usually 30 minutes long, but since you have yard duty, make sure to scarf your meal down quickly! And maybe 2-3 times a week, you have meetings within your lunch/prep time. After school, there are meetings that lasts until 5PM, sometimes these meetings are unnecessary. After the meetings, you clean up and prep for the next day. So, you might be going home around 6-7PM.

Having a 10-12 hour workday is exhausting already, but make sure you still have enough energy because you got to keep working on the weekends! Lots of "deliverables" needs to be met before the next week starts.

Overall, working here was tough. Lack of work-life balance was the main reason I quit. Along with that, it's a high pressure job and if you calculate your total compensation to the amount of work you put in and the disrespect you get from students, it's not worth it.

Extremely stressful. There is absolutely no work life balance. The teachers are great but the entire operations suck! It’s like a prison for kids. Management is focused on numbers. Pressure to push attendance is intense.  OMs performance is based on if parents bring their child to school. Which  most times are circumstances out of managers control.  The child is sick, death in family. OM’s are basically begging parents to bring there kids to school. The parents think it’s because the school care but it’s really for numbers. Kids have a lot of accidents especially the girls because the school only allow a child to go to the bathroom once a day!  Which is ridiculous. The safety of staff is put on back burner. The parking lot is extremely dark when staff gets off. Many shootings around school that made me feel very unsafe getting to and from work. A huge workload put on one person. When you ask for help, they look at you crazy. The principal is weird. He just stares at you, and when you speak to him, he act like he doesn’t hear you. One day a staff member came to me and confirmed it, and said the same thing about him. I felt like I was running around the school like a chicken with its head cut off. Everyone wasn’t respectful of your time. During an expected blizzard, the DO told me that I should leave out 4 hours early to get to work on time instead of the safety of staff. Thank God schools was shut down that day. Summers are horrible. I think I would enjoy the mission if it was genuine.

What is the best part of working at the company?
It's the perfect place for a performative liberal to pretend to care about the marginalized communities they serve and employ without actually doing anything to protect and uplift their voices.

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
Teaching is a thankless, under-compensated profession where educators are expected to wear many hats while being responsible for several dozen children at a time. KIPP finds a way to micromanage every second of your day on top of that and administration goes out of their way to make your experience extra uncomfortable and ostracizing if they don't personally like you. Knowing that their values of diversity are only lip service makes teaching here as a minority unsafe. 

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
Full of cliques and performative white cishet people whose words and actions rarely align.

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
It's teaching, which is fairly straightforward. Where KIPP stands apart is how every second of your day is planned for you (down to where you stand in a room) while not allowing for anything human like using the restroom, needing to call for help, or the fact that you can't instantaneously move from one spot to the next. If you fail to meet their public speaking metrics (none of which refer to the actual academic learning), they use shame tactics like forcing you to come to school early for "retraining".

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Teacher 22 salaries reported	$60,442 per year
Elementary school teacher 56 salaries reported	$75,154 per year
High school teacher 47 salaries reported	$81,861 per year
Substitute 4 salaries reported	$45,572 per year
Special education teacher 28 salaries reported	$70,666 per year

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