Good pay sort of - Teacher Academy of Advanced Learning Employee Review

The DYAD coordinator and supervisors are wonderfully supportive, know the kids very well, and will take troublesome students out of the classroom after interventions are used up. They talk with DYAD coaches comfortably, are ex-cellent teachers in their own right, and often have high expectations of our students. The kids are routinely drilled on annotation, encouraged to be cre- ative, and expected to respect every adult in the building. They can be chall- enging, but most are good kids. Staff are heavy on discipline, and help each other routinely with classroom management. Student self-advocacy is fre- quently encouraged, maybe more so than other charter schools I've worked at, and most students want to work together. The pay is very good.

The student population is mostly Hispanic with many African American stu-dents, and there are tensions at times between these groups. Restorative Justice is the goal for all students, but many of these kids are used to ignoring teacher instructions, and creating conflict. Keeping them in order and on task takes a lot of repeition, and can wear both staff and coaches out. Difficult stu- dents are given many chances to improve their behavior until they either change thier behavior, or are eventually removed from the classroom. Usually two out of a dozen. Staff turnover is high, as you expect with a charter school.

Higher teaching salary with quick opportunity to grow.

Some things could be better if given more support to the teachers and staff.