mathematics teacher

teacher

english teacher

administrative assistant

tutor

Tilden Preparatory School

Pros:

Great opportunity to work one on one with students from diverse backgrounds, learning abilities/styles, personalities, with distinct educational /socio-emotional needs. One on one model allows you to see what strategies are effective/ineffective in a relatively short period of time, which is difficult in a large classroom setting. As you gain more experience teaching, and your knowledge and comfort level in your subject areas grow, and you can bring in resources/tools/learning platforms into your class, which you can use to expand on your craft. Ability to teach basically any class that you would want, is a good opportunity to get experience, especially when it comes to AP courses. There are many highly talented and hard working teachers who are very collaborative, supportive of each other and collegial. Opportunities exist to be an advisor in student groups/clubs during lunch, if one chooses. 

Cons:

High Turnover: Very high teacher and front desk staff turnover. Little to no investment made in staff retention, described by upper administration  as a “stepping stone” job. High turnover creates lack of continuity for students, and constant loss of experienced and talented staff. School seems to either be in denial about this issue or not actually care/realize how such high amounts of staff turnover damages the schools capacity/ability/effectiveness to serve the vulnerable population of students that Tilden serves. The faculty page for the Albany and Walnut Creek campuses have been blank for months. 

Lack of Adequate Teacher Training: Very little training is given towards working with students with learning differences. The very limited teacher training that does exist (20 minutes, once a week, during teacher preparation time) is often topical due to limited time, and does not allow each topic the time and attention that it needs/deserves. Trainings seem to be targeted more toward satisfying reporting requirements rather than actually for the benefit of staff and students. 

Prep Time: An inadequate amount of  time is given for  preparation for one on one class instruction. 1 hour of preparation time is given for every 10 hours of instructional time which is paid at the reduced rate of  $20 an hour (which is well below the $32-$37 an hour pay range for teachers) This inadequacy and devalorization runs in contradiction to one of the schools main points of emphasis of  providing quality individualized instruction. Any class cancellations count against accrued preparation time. 

No Human Resources:  Disciplinary issues are currently handled by upper administration which is a conflict of interest if issues arise involving a member of the upper administrative team. There is an outside HR consultant that is called in at the discretion of upper administration. Day to day HR issues are handled by a member of upper administration who also handles employee benefits/health insurance questions/issues. 

Bullying/Unprofessional Behavior/Nepotism: There has been a long history of unprofessional, bullying and retaliatory behavior perpetuated by current members of the upper administrative team including those who are in charge of curriculum and HR/benefits, who for years has been able to comport themselves in this way with impunity. Numerous complaints (documented & verbal) have been made to the current founders of the school and other persons on the upper management leadership team for years to no effect. Instead, upper management  has acted to ignore, enable, excuse and cover up this behavior to the detriment of teachers, staff, and the school culture. Additionally, over the years many of the top leadership positions have been awarded not through merit and ability, but through a combination of nepotism and as a means to reward those who do not question /are not critical of the decisions made/ actions taken  by members of the upper management team. This encourages  pettiness, immaturity, vindictiveness, insecurity, gossip and insincerity to permeate through the upper levels of the school leadership. All of this creates an environment that is unproductive, toxic, incompetent and uncaring, which has greatly worsened in the last couple of years. 

Other Issues: 

Lack of real control / teacher feedback / collaboration in regards to the development of curriculum. 

No CFO or Controller exists within the school.  

Logistically, administratively and curriculum wise the school is consistently reactive instead of proactive.  



Advice to Management 

Hire onsite HR. (It is appalling that there is no longer a full time onsite HR position,  considering all of the issues that have come up regarding unprofessionality, bullying and targeting that has occurred at the school) 

Have the founders remove themselves from the day to day operations of the school and have an independent board of directors (who are not spouses/partners or friends of the founders) be created that includes persons with experience and expertise in the realms of: education, finance, law, labor relations, outreach and include permanent rotating positions for a parent and teacher. This board would then hire and review the top management positions (Directors) within the organization based on skill and ability, not personal relationships and nepotism. 

Release/share the most recent WASC self study and committee report (as has been the practice in previous years). 

Provide fair and equitable prep time to teachers at their regular wage without making it conditional, difficult/burdensome to track / log. 

Focus on retention of experienced and skilled teachers. Many students return to Tilden based on their positive experiences working with talented and skilled teachers. 

Communicate with your teachers. Actually communicate with your staff, include them in decision making processes. Run ideas/ changes by them, get feedback about best practices, be transparent about the factors that go into decision making. Release the results of surveys/reports or other data collection that has been done. 

Stop making empty platitudes and hollow gestures about valuing teachers/staff and actually begin the process of repairing the relationship with your school community, instead of wasting thousands of dollars on a law firm that has a confrontational and oppositional stance towards teachers and the teacher union (which formed as a result of the above mentioned issues). 

Stop gaslighting your staff and employees. Stop being dishonest when staff bring up structural issues/concerns that have been brought up for years by labeling them as individual problems, or denying that these systemic problems even exist 


All of the individuals who are part of the current upper management team don’t seem to be a good fit for Tilden. 


First of all the job ads that Tilden Prep is consistently posting (due to high teacher turn over and the need to hire a new teacher every time they cannot schedule a student with current teachers) are extremely misleading. The ads have a very nice pay range $30-$40 but what they do not tell you is that you are not guaranteed 40 hours per week and most likely you will have around 25-30 hours a week if you are lucky!

In addition have fun with a consistently fluctuating schedule one week you have 35 hours another week you have 30 hours another week you have 25 your schedule is always changing every week mainly because students take vacations, parents decide to withdraw kids from classes or they want their kids to go faster or slower and as a result the student is switched to a new teacher that has the available time slot. When this happens it can take 1-3 weeks to get your schedule filled up again. When you need a consistent stream of income this becomes very stressful not to mention you now have 1 to 2 hour gaps in your schedule every day where you are literally doing nothing other than thinking if you should get a second or third job. Management always says that they are "trying to fill your schedules" but do not seem to make any changes in terms of marketing or finding new potential customers to fill teacher schedules. 

If you do not mind having a fluctuating schedule that is rarely 40 hours a week and do not need a steady stream of income to survive and pay bills then this is the job for you!

The only way a teacher can get 40 hours a week is if you can teach math, English, science, humanities, foreign language, art, and computer science then you will have a good chance of getting 40 hours a week not to mention that you are not allowed to lesson plan because Tilden hires teachers with "subject expertise" and are considered to know everything and have no need to lesson plan which is ridiculous. So have fun reading different books for each one of your English classes which some how you are suppose to have mastery in. Have fun reviewing concepts in math for algebra, geometry, precalculus, and calculus all at the same time if you are a math teacher and if you teach multiple subjects have fun getting classes ready and not look like you do not know what you are doing in front of the student because it is impossible to lesson plan for every single different subject that you teach. 

They keep reminding you that you are not suppose to lesson plan for any of your classes outside of class so you are forced to lesson plan with the student in class. 

This a good job for many teachers that are currently looking and waiting for something better most of the teachers leave once they find their "dream job".

Tilden Prep can be so much more for teachers but it seems that management is missing the bigger picture which is unfortunate. Many students and parents notice that teachers come and go every year. What they don’t know is that they leave because of the nature of the job, hours are always fluctuating and you need to lesson plan for a variety of classes not to mention that you are not guaranteed a steady source of income. Sad.

While the concept of Tilden as a school is great and works well for many students, there are a multitude of issues which make working as a teacher here very stressful, unpleasant, and not very lucrative.

Tilden as a company is a very shady organization which cares more about making money than treating their employees well. They try to lure in potential employees with a high hourly rate but fail to mention the fact that you will be doing 5-15+ hours of planning a week which is entirely unpaid. They will pretend as though you don't need to do any planning because they provide the materials. While in reality all that is provided are outdated textbooks as well as blank study guides and tests with no answer keys. No lesson plans are provided! Additionally, many of the students you will be working with have severe learning differences which will cause you to spend a lot of time unpaid making modifications to curriculum for these students. 

Also, they make it sound like it's a full time job when in reality you will only get 35-40 hours for at best 6 weeks of the year. The rest of the year you will get closer to 25-30 hours per week and at times even 20-25 hours. What makes this even worse is they require you to keep a fully open schedule and reprimand and punish if you try to put blocks in your schedule in order to find a second job. You will also have random unpaid gaps in your schedule which range from 1-5 hours almost everyday. For instance, you may have your first student at 8am and last student at 5pm but only get paid for 5 hours of work. Also, if a student drops out of Tilden unexpectedly you immediately lose those hours and are at the mercy of the scheduling coordinator to give you another student and more hours.

There is also a lot of favoritism and bias in how hours are distributed among teachers. The teachers who suck up to the admin get most of the hours while the teachers who are equally skillful but keep to themselves tend get the lowest hours and the worst schedules. If you try to complain about this they provide many excuses such as 'we are doing the best to fill your schedule' yet make no significant changes nor increase paid planning time.

The good things about working at Tilden is you get a lot of freedom to teach the courses as there is generally little oversight, and the students are usually enjoyable to work with. The other teachers and secretaries are also very nice and will help you with any problems which may arise. I would only recommend working here if you are not in need of consistent and reliable full-time income, and don't mind having to teach 5-8 different courses at once to students of many learning backgrounds and abilities.

When you read the ads, Tilden sounds like a decent place to work. Decent starting pay, flexibility with scheduling, a 1-1 learning environment. However, when I started observing the culture on campus, I quickly realized that I was a gig worker. I felt like I was expected to just come in and teach but not share my experience, my ideas, or my concerns with heads or my colleagues to help improve the programs at the school. I do not feel that management handles criticism well. They can say they heard my issues, but they did not actively work with me when it came to making changes or addressing problems on campus.

The teachers have tried to change this culture and dynamic, but management refuses to hear what we've been very vocally asking for: updated curriculum organized for the mastery programs, better training, more robust professional development opportunities to understand how to better reach students with a wide range of learning differences, flexibility with remote options, better access to prep hours, holiday pay, long-term investment in teachers, the list goes on and on. 

When I came on board, I noticed that many of my students worked with two or more other teachers prior to me. This speaks to the high levels of teacher turnover. Instead of looking at what's going on campus that contributes to this rate of turnover, management will say it's because teachers want flexibility in scheduling or teachers come on short-term with the intention of moving onto grad school or other occupations. However, I would suggest Tilden does very little to hold onto veteran and experienced teachers by not providing any advancement opportunities or addressing their needs in meaningful ways. 

Tilden will consistently remind teachers how important it is to develop a positive educational relationship with the students. So, what is the impact on a student's education and mental health when they are consistently cycled through teachers they've developed positive relationships with because management does little to address turnover? And how is management developing positive relationships with their teachers in order to foster a more collaborative community?

I will close on this. To me, a school works when everyone (students, parents, teachers, admin) has real avenues of communication that lead to improvements and positive changes. Schools function when teachers feel like they are trusted to do their jobs effectively by management. Schools function when students have a sense of stability in their environment. Schools function when admin facilitates the learning process without attempting to dictate every aspect of it. 

Tilden has a lot of work to do to make this a functional space for everyone.


Teaching at the junior high school or the high school level is often a thankless, low-paying job, and that is certainly the case at The Tilden Preparatory School and, I suspect, at its sibling schools in Walnut Creek and in Marin County. The turnover rate for teachers at Tilden is very high, leading to disappointment for some students who came to the school seeking out stable, positive relationships. Teachers leave frequently because the nature of the job places it firmly in the "gig economy:" work hours are typically unstable due to a variety of factors, there is no chance for overtime for the vast majority (read 99%) of teachers, benefits are virtually non-existent, management is concerned with whatever impacts the bottom line (profits) and little else, there is little to no opportunity for advancement, teachers and students are crammed into rooms that, at peak hours, are noisy (how students with learning disabilities are supposed to prosper in such a noisy environment is a mystery), among other problems.  This is a job for fresh out of college, entry-level workers who either live at home or who have a significant other who provides the bulk of family income; no one in the Bay Area could make ends meet on Tilden pay.
There are no lesson plans, and the course materials available to teachers are often woefully inadequate. That would be par for the course at an inner-city public school, but keep in mind this is a very high-priced private school. 

As for the student experience, I believe that many students are aware of the fact that there is significant grade inflation at Tilden. Parents may seek out Tilden and its affiliates given that, effectively, the lowest grade a student can receive at the school is a "C," (and then only with the permission of parents). The idea is supposed to be that students will, despite initial (and, often, many) less than average showings, eventually bring the quality of their work up to a "B" level, at a minimum. However, given that this process typically involves hours beyond the typical thirty prescribed for most courses, the expense often becomes an issue, leading to parents putting pressure on the administration for more immediate "results." In turn, management often switches students to another teacher. On the other hand, some students (whose parents are wealthy), languish in classes for 60, 70, 80 or, occasionally, 90+ hours. 

While there may be a handful of teachers for whom Tilden works relatively well, overall it is not a place that yields sustainable career paths for anyone other than the owners and the two or three upper-level management employees.

The owners call the shots and the heads of school uphold their wishes and maintain that status quo. Instead of letting us remain working from home after 16 months they required us with no debate or conversation to return or be fired. A huge amount of teachers and front desk people quit. This was disruptive for students who lost their teachers. Working remotely is embraced by workers and it could be good for the school to allow it. My hours wildly varied. I never made more than 50k. The owners also seem to invest a lot in fighting the union that we formed, but doesn’t seem to invest in keeping teachers and creating a place where they can invest themselves in the work place. I feel like the heads listened to the owners but not me or my coworkers. We often don’t get paid for many holidays. It’s nice to have off, but you won’t get paid for most of them! That can be hard on the financials. Teachers often report not being trained well enough to handle what we go through at tilden including working with students with learning differences, some very extreme. Also, we only get 1 hour of prep per 10 hours taught. That’s because the union, too! I’ve heard many teachers doing prep unpaid because they feel they need it. 

As an educator, I found Tilden to be a great opportunity to work with students in a way that supports all learners. 

Tilden offers teachers the ability to work with students one-to-one and really differentiate instruction so that no student is left behind. It is definitely not like working in a traditional classroom setting (which I did previously) where you have to create everything yourself. Assessments and supporting documents are all provided so you just have to bring your knowledge and passion for teaching. You really get to make a difference for your students.

It is definitely different to work hourly as a teacher, but honestly, if I had ever calculated my "hourly" rate when I was salaried, it would have been much less. There is some variability in your pay as students are moving through courses at their own pace and may cancel, finish their course, or there may be a holiday.  That is what it means to work hourly - if you do not work, you do not get paid - so it was a trade off I understood I was making. 

I always found that administration was responsive to supporting me  - there is an open door policy and I never experience anyone being unreasonable.

I had been with Tilden for several years and can't say enough about the impact on my life as an educator, the flexibility and understanding of the management to allow me to pursue my personal/professional goals, and the satisfaction of seeing my students thrive.

My colleagues have always been welcoming, amazing educators.  I was able to build lasting friendships that I will cherish.  The Heads have always been there to address my concerns and needs.  Even with competing priorities, they have always found time to give guidance and direction.  The Directors are warm and welcoming and appreciative of feedback.  Though they are not always about to make adjustments they consider and plan for improvements each year.  Having been a long term employee I have seen it firsthand.

As an educator, being about to get to know a student one-to-one is an amazing transformative experience and taught me much about being an educator and the power of individualized education.

Though I have moved on from Tilden, I would return in a heartbeat.

First of all, this work place is a highly unstable job. The school when they first hire you claim to give you full-time hours but they don't! You are a teacher who works for an hourly wage with extremely fluctuating hours. You can go from 40hrs to 10hrs or less very fast especially during low enrollment and towards the end of the semesters. Your workable hours depend on how many students the school can fit in your schedule, and if enrollment is low, good luck! Some teachers are always on some sort of under-employment benefits. The school pretty much does nothing to guarantee you full schedule. 

The school has very high turn-over especially from teachers. Most people move on to something better. Benefits are minimal. No vacation and no paid-time off. Minimum sick hours.

I had the flexibility to create course and class content fit the needs of a diverse array of students facing a variety of learning challenges from dyslexia to recovery from drug addiction. The result was the ability of many students succeeding to reach high standards, returning to various high-achieving private schools, and entering college. Great colleagues and support from management whenever I had a concern, especially regarding students with serious issues or challenges. Always felt supported.

The only con was that because of high teacher turn over due to the business model, some students had false expectations of Tilden being easy and were initially surprised or resistant to improving. Thankfully, with management's help, we often found best practices for both students and teachers.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Mathematics teacher 1 salary reported	$36.50 per hour
Teacher 5 salaries reported	$36.10 per hour
English teacher 4 salaries reported	$35.50 per hour
Administrative assistant 2 salaries reported	$34.75 per hour
Tutor 5 salaries reported	$36.50 per hour

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