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Phalen Leadership Academies

This company plays games with people like they are in a friend group college sorority.

This school and company has a very high turnover rate and does not have a reliable plan of action for its students or staff members. The current leadership lacks the experience and expertise to manage a school. The principal is very young and immature and lacks the proper knowledge, leadership experience, and creditials to manage a school effectively. The assistant principal has the creditials to lead, but is very emotionally driven by her traumatized life experiences. 

These leaders are driven by their egos and will lie to get ahead and will destroy their students education in the process. For example, altering grades to make it appear that students are doing well when they lack the foundational skills they need for the next level of their education. There is a lack of a behavioral plan, and the school environment is chaotic; especially on the middle school level. There is always fighting, chaos in the halls, disrespect in the classrooms, a major bullying issue, skipping issues, children are having s*xual relations in different areas of the school, and the special education students are not receiving the proper assistance required by law. Leadership lacks the ability to retain teachers and support staff that actually care about the students because leadership see honorable employees as a threat to the organization. Meaning that there is a huge conflict of interest because the management team of Phalen and the principal respects retaining friendships and keeping employees who ignore their wrong doings instead of retaining competent staff members to educate their students properly.

There are some good qualities of the school and the school does have the potential of being a great school.  But, if leadership wasn't so ego driven and actually listened to the concerns of its staff members instead of viewing those concerns as insults; leadership could do what's right for their students and staff members. But, immaturity is the leading issue and it creates a toxic cultural environment among the students and staff members.

This charter management company is driven by the profits being made from these failing charter schools and do not specialized in retaining valuable staff members. Phalen Leadership Academy treat staff as numbers and will dispose valuable employees because these companies lack a retention plan. 

Overall there is a dark cloud looming over the school due to the toxic cultural ego driven environment. 

Phalen Leadership Academy Montgomery has great intentions, but the lack of knowledge and abilities with current leadership will be its downfall. Leadership wants yay-sayers, not knowledgeable and effective leaders who may disagree with or advocate for the scholars. Management lacks the depth of knowledge and experience necessary to address the learning gaps. They don't value diversity, or growth outside of the friend circle, sorority, or kiss-ups. Growth is not determined by ability but rather by back scratches. Favored teachers can come in late every day, not attend meetings, or leave early, while others are given directives and a hard time. It implements too many programs, curricula, and initiatives all without fidelity or consistency....again this is due to the lack of knowledge on the leadership side. For the most part, the teachers are doing all they can just to survive between all the meetings, instructional programs, and school behaviors. Currently, no one on campus understands behaviors or can provide researched based behavior interventions, the school just isn't reporting behaviors but sending scholars home. Bullying is out of control, again because proper behavior intervention is not evident. Yes, they have a program but are using it incorrectly because leadership lacks instructional understanding. Their response to intervention is a joke. No one working at PLA in Montgomery understands, or if they do, won't challenge the regional leadership to implement it correctly. The regional leadership holds 99% of the blame, if not explain the turnover! 

The principal is very direct and sets clear expectations, and actually follows through with them!! Def a bonus! For the most part, if you do your job and the responsibilities attached, you’re left alone. However, her speech/management style is abrasive and can come off as a bit rude/bully at times.
The insurance premiums are atrocious, some staff even stated they could not afford insurance with their salaries, and work full-time. That’s a bit concerning. 
The school is lacking in heavily experienced teachers, most teachers are uncertified, or newly certified, so not a whole lot of peers to go to for support/mentoring. Most of the “admin” don’t hold the appropriate credentials to hold their positions in state of Michigan. 
Extremely high turn over either because of a promise of salary/bonus/raise that’s never received, or feeling bullied/intimidated by admin with extra duties.
The school always seems as if it’s the first day as for being organized, having a plan of how to deal with behaviors, how the flow/schedule of classes...things never seem to settle, everyone is always seemingly cut off guard and have to quickly adapt to some new item being presented and expected for teachers to begin immediately...like new curriculum. 
All teachers seem overwhelmed and patiently waiting their escape. We have one Special Needs teacher w/o all credentials, the certified ones keep leaving.

The leadership at this school (Fort Wayne) is more concerned with supervising/re-training its experienced teaching staff than it is with real student progress. The school serves a "marginalized" population, most of whom do not fit into the normal public system, and there are severe behavioral issues in the classroom that are addressed very ineffectively by the administration. Couple this with the fact that most students bring to the classroom severely limited backgrounds, schemas, and skill-sets, and it is a very difficult group to teach. Moreover, students are given iPads with a very unreliable IT infrastructure - which has no firewalls in place (!) - so that students are constantly on innapropriate gaming sites, etc., during class time. Despite this, students are supposed to teach themselves individually the "related arts" of music, art, and career building via computer programs. Ridiculous. The administration, though, is most concerned with the "data" from the classroom so that it can make its case to the school's charter holders that it's a viable entity that operates on "scientifically proven best practices." In my morning meetings, I was often made to respond to administrators as if I were a student in a freshman seminar, and in the classroom, I often felt like a participant in an experiment about to go terribly wrong.

A typical day at work is unpredictable, leaving me unsure of what challenges await. This uncertainty often leads to stress rather than excitement. Unfortunately, I feel I haven’t learned much during my time here; the lack of structured training and meaningful guidance has stunted my professional growth.

Management attempts to hold employees accountable, but they frequently fail to uphold the same standards for themselves. This inconsistency fosters frustration among staff. Additionally, the workplace culture is divided, resulting in a lack of collaboration and communication.

One of the hardest aspects of the job is the constant reshuffling of schedules, which disrupts our routines. Moreover, the absence of prepared lessons from teachers leaves students without the necessary support, complicating our ability to provide effective instruction. Overall, my experience has been challenging, and I believe significant changes are needed to improve the work environment and better support both staff and students.

I was so excited about working for this charter school. They say all the right words to bring you in. The problem is they do not follow through treating their teachers and students badly. If you want to work in a tonic environment this is the place for you. The leadership spend a lot time making themselves look good by giving misinformed information about scores and etc. They lack the knowledge and understanding or just do not want to follow the laws regarding special education. The behavior connected to the students are off the chart with NO help for the teachers. The teachers have so many meetings without anytime to plan or take a breath. The inexperienced leadership positions are usually made due to wanting their friends to work there with promiscuous behavior among leadership. The lack of uncerified teachers, staff, and leadership brings so many problems with classroom management, behavior, and teaching. If you truly care about children, respect yourself as an educator, and want do right by following the laws think twice before taking an offer from this company. You will regret it from day one. The money is NOT worth it.

I was sold in the interview process when I was told I was going to meet children where they are and have the opportunity to use my judgement and experience to provide authentic learning experiences unique to my class. I felt that excitement that I had 20 years ago when we really were allowed to have a small bit of autonomy within the classroom. However, by week 3, I realized that was not the case. The leadership team was EXTREMELY YOUNG AND INEXPERIENCED and we quickly realized that we were taught what to teach, when to teach it, and HOW to teach it.  We were evaluated 2 to 3 times weekly at random times and we HAD to make sure we used whatever strategy they were implementing while they were in there, which often times made NO SENSE and was frustrating.  There is also limited chances for advancement. In our region, those that were able to advance had to be a certain race and gender.  This statement is backed by the data present within PLA in Alabama, not a generalization. 

Phalen was the first charter school that I've ever worked at. They painted this idea that students are "scholars" and they take these failing schools and turn them into successes. It feels like it is all a facade. They do not hire teachers that care. I have witnessed other staff say these kids won't go to college, drag kids by their collars, call them the r-slur, stupid, or ignorant, and no matter how many times it is reported, they will not fire or replace these teachers. No substitutes. You are to have a split list and send your students to other classrooms while they do a packet of work-which they won't finish. Majority of students are 2 grade levels behind. A handful in each class are illiterate. The reading interventionists only meet with a handful of kids and will stop meeting with some if they have poor attendance or are consistently tardy. Printers are constantly breaking and we are out of supplies like paper for an exteded period of time.  SPED students have no paraprofessionals and do not have IEP hours met. I really think this could be a better place if money was better allocated and the hiring process was more careful about who they hire. 

I started at a PLA school when it was relatively new and needed a lot of work. The first year was very rough with behaviors, staff-student interactions, and no clear curriculum. We improved a bit the second year with innovative collaboration with peers, but there is still a hint of toxicity and favoritism among certain staff members and admin. The final year I worked there I felt like I had very little support and we were consistently being reprimanded by admin for minute things. We were also expected to teach a complicated phonics curriculum that we were not trained for, and some staff were written up for not consistently following it. Our SPED team tried their hardest with only 2 teachers and 2 aids, but the aids were being pulled constantly to cover duties. Many times minutes were not being met, especially with the accumulation of IEPs. Also feels very wrong to mark kids present the last two weeks of school when they are not there in order to maintain attendance rates. Overall, I think after some time PLA might improve, but right now, it is a very stressful work environment and not a very structured educational facility. 

The scholars have really come in this year and are in full force. The staff is struggling, the admin is and it feels as though the company could care less. There is a need for some more school specific training such as trauma training and proper etiquette when it comes to children physically fighting with one another. Along with these things, the company as a whole seems to not want to listen to the teachers under them as well as forever placing the blame on anyone but themselves. They even go as far as waiting until the very last day of school, in the evening, to EMAIL out a contract renewal or not asked back letter. Teachers that are not asked back are never given the decency of a face-to-face conversation. The pay for most hired through Phalen was also not bumped up at all despite the performance ratings throughout the year. The HR department has been a mess until recently. All in all, the company is sub par and the school's they manage follow suit with that review. Support needs to come from the TOP, down!

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