teacher

special assistant

elementary school teacher

mathematics teacher

fellow

KIPP SoCal Public Schools

After teaching in public schools for four years, I decided to try charter schools, specifically KIPP, as I had heard they offered more resources and better pay. I was also drawn to their values on anti-racism and restorative approaches to behavior management. However, after a few months of working here, I’ve come to realize that switching from public to charter was a mistake.

I’m not sure if my experience is unique to the KIPP school I worked at or if it's reflective of all KIPP schools, but the environment feels cult-like. Teachers have little autonomy and are not allowed to be creative with lesson planning. Instead, we are required to follow plans from the "Teach Like a Champion" packet, which is ironic because it often boils down to handing out packets. We are expected to submit lesson plans weekly, answering every question on the packet as if we were students ourselves.

Administration seems more focused on the appearance of the school than on meaningful education, and while feedback is delivered with an overly "nice" demeanor, it’s always negative and unconstructive. I would constantly be pinged on "slack" by my supervisor on weekends regarding my lesson plans which I believe is wrong since my hours are M-F. Student behavior is a significant issue, and there seems to be no real accountability. In my first week, a student fought three others, yet faced no real consequences beyond a simple “talk.” Teaching children that there are no substantial repercussions for misbehavior is not only ineffective, but potentially harmful.

Additionally, teachers have no say in grading policies or how grades are inputted, which makes it feel like you’re simply a cog in the machine rather than an educator. There’s minimal prep time—only one hour per day—and the hours are long (7 AM to 4 PM). Teachers are expected to stand and act as hall monitors to middle schoolers during hallway transitions instead of encouraging them to develop independent skills. Work life balance here was non existent. 

Take this as you will, but I cannot recommend working here.

Kipp really does sound good on paper, for both prospective educators and students. They have perfected their media and advertising formula and have clearly invested in PR & recruitment. The trouble really begins once you step into the classroom. Expecting a curriculum? Forget it. Here’s digital access to a generic textbook with dull lessons and abysmal pacing strategies.  Trouble in your overfilled classroom? Just send the kid to the counselor a fourth time. It’s not like the last 3 teachers quit over aggressive and disruptive behaviors. Are you in it for the kids or not? Teach 4 periods and a homeroom but also be alert during your prep time for issues that will come up and that you will have to address as a team player. And you’ll need to escort those kids down to recess and lunch both ways. Also, don’t forget you’re responsible for holding my on to your kids after school until each individual child is called for pickup. Here’s 8 hours of teacher planning to make those lessons from scratch and to call parents, create and grade assignments, log student behavior, and do your state mandated training. And please show up to Personnel Development both in house and at our central office. But hey, you love working with children and you’ll have summers off. If you make it that far. But the truly mind scrambling part is that as an educator you will meet and work alongside caring and truly lovely people. It just so happens they are also too exhausted and overworked to support you. All of this happens under leadership that seems to have perfected little else beside the ability to give enthusiastic pep talks that subtly and preemptively shame you for inevitably becoming overwhelmed. 

What is the best part of working at the company?
I worked for the regional team and was grateful to have a manager that didn’t micromanage and was given a lot of autonomy in my schedule due to all the assessments I had to complete across various school sites. 

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
I often had to do more outside the scope of my job description and it was difficult to set boundaries, even when I was already drowning in work. 

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
It’s a supportive environment with hardworking people, and if you’re on a great team — you get to learn and grow from your peers. 

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
Going to at least 2 different school sites a day (I worked across all 24 sites), conducting observations for assessment data, then working on compiling+analyzing that data for reports. You also spend time preparing for the IEPs and often got assigned to the contentious families with lawyers/advocates. Additionally, I was responsible for training regional behavior technicians and coaching classroom teachers with their responses to Tier 3 challenging behavior for the students I did FBAs on. At a couple points in my time here, I was assigned to do 1:1 behavior intervention work for a student (for a good 6-8 weeks) when they were waiting to hire that student’s 1:1 support staff. It was a lot of work and for the first 1.5-2 school years, they never hired another behavior specialist. I had to do all of that on my own.

The workload at this company is completely unattainable.  My mental health took a sharp decline upon working here.  The biggest lesson I learned here is to never work for KIPP again.  Management was completely unsupportive, and demanding.  The hardest part of this job was enduring the toxic environment set forth by my "school leader".  I completely enjoyed working with the kids, other teachers, and the parents are nice--but admin spoke unkindly to me, and unkindly about others.  I was being mentally broken down to think I was an incompetent.  This further made me believe I could not get up and quit.  I worked day and night and weekends over the span of several weeks.  I declined offers from my friends to socialise.  Even so I could not meet the demands of the admin.  I would often come home and have panic attacks because of the workload.  Also because of the workload, I was unable to formulate and individual thought long enough to realise I could quit this place and never look back.  10/10 would rather bag groceries.

KIPP is a decent place to work at initially as they encourage productivity and will teach you a few helpful things in their professional development meetings. You will meet some kind and talented teachers that you can learn from and grow with. However, you will quickly feel burned out by the constant meetings, low staff-student ratio, and tasks that are outside your job description. Many tasks are more focused on making the school look good than on actually ensuring that students learn. Managers frequently change the expectations and have internal disagreement about expectations, but get aggressive if you politely ask for clarity and consistency or politely share your own thoughts or experiences. They also micromanage and treat you like an idiot, regardless of your education and experience, all while pretending to be your family. The kids are wonderful and have a lot of potential, but they have almost no consequences serious misbehavior, are reprimanded for petty things, and are discouraged from thinking critically and taking responsibility for their own learning.

DISCLAIMER - THIS IS A REVIEW ON THE TECH TEAM POSITIONS AT KIPP

Working here was fine until the pandemic started. Demands for our team to take on unrealistic deadlines with poor planning strategy became the norm. Everyday became more depressing than the next and the only thing to get us by was friendship between the employees. A huge disconnect between management and the employees was created during this time. Our voices weren't being heard and whatever "came from the top" had to be done despite lack of resources, hours, people, rationale, and training. The most disappointing part was running into unnecessary problems because we would constantly double take things and change up procedures mid process. Pushing back on these decisions was never successful. 

This is insight on the duties that had to be done and accomplished by a team of about 10:

Procure, provision, and deliver 6,000 devices to 20+ schools (Chromebooks and hotspots)
Negotiate and Acquire Software Licenses
Maintain and finish Network Projects
Take on a newly created family member hotline
Repair hundreds of broken devices
Poor performing employees are kept on causing detriment of the team





When I started at KIPP 4 years ago, I had the desire to become the best teacher I could be. Little did I know, employment at KIPP would not only prepare me to be an amazing teacher, it changed my life. 

As a founding teacher, I had the experience of being part of a team that created a school from the ground up. I felt like I had a voice and that my work was valued. I worked with teachers who I now consider family. In addition, I had the opportunity to be innovative and try new things with support from my School Leader and experienced peers. 

I received weekly one-on-one meetings driven by data about my instruction. I was observed and given feedback. I attended PDs on my content and participated in workshops that changed how I taught. 

The families we served were supportive and active. There was never a week that went by without food in the teacher's lounge, a positive conversation with a parent, or an invite to a birthday party/soccer game/or other family events.

I don’t recommend the only good that comes from working here is the free benefits. School admins are bullies and use scare tactics to get you to do what they want including the children and yell in their face for something minor such as slouching in the chair. They require you to go home and work multiple hours. The workload is unsustainable for more than 3 weeks because they continuously add to your plate even when they see it’s not being done and none of the extra can be done in the work hours, since the have so many pointless meetings. They do “live” coaching which really is just them taking over the class multiple times a week. Managers are condescending make you feel like you are a horrible teacher and their way is the only way to teach a class. If a student is refusing to sit in there chair and you ask for them to help support they find anyway to  blame the teacher even when following the protocol they provide you. They consistently ignore teachers who ask for support. 

Can be a stable career in terms of 2% salary growth every year, extra pay for extra duties, depending on your subject you will have a curriculum, but the heavy task of collecting and tracking data to provide regional. Can be corporate in the sense that data is a fore front priority and can create overworked and burned out teachers who invest 50 to 60 hours a week to meet expectations. 

Work events are cool. They always have great swag. Potential to build relationships with coworkers and have a great support system. 

Lots of State of California requirements that make you feel like you're jumping through hoops to get your credential:
- CBEST
- Credential Program
- edTPA 
- Induction to clear credential

PAY ISNT AS COMPETITIVE AS THEY MAKE IT SEEM. In my 4th year making 69k and Alliance pays around 73k for a 4th year teacher... just saying... 

The school that I worked for had horrible management, I still do not understand why there are no nurses within these schools and the office staff has to be the one to perform such duties. I only had three working hours in the day, the rest was me doing something for someone else or tending to the ill children. Every time I did something wrong I would get scolded like a child but was not provided with support. I was very disappointing in how I was treated within this particular location. 

The school success team was amazing. They tried to support you even when handling the rest of the schools in the region.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Teacher 4 salaries reported	$72,250 per year
Special assistant 4 salaries reported	$20.50 per hour
Elementary school teacher 5 salaries reported	$81,500 per year
Mathematics teacher 15 salaries reported	$88,041 per year
Fellow 1 salary reported	$106,000 per year

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