Toxic Work Environment - Teacher DREAM Employee Review

2.0
Jul 13, 2023
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

- Easy hiring (they will take anyone. Not an exaggeration). - No teaching license required to teach at Dream (great for people transitioning into education from another field). - Willing to negotiate salary. - Signing bonus available (you should ask for it during the interview process). - If you decide not to come back for the following year, they will pay you out for July at the end of June.

Cons

- Toxic work environment (You'll hear "We are a family"a lot). - High turnover rate for teachers (you might start off with a co-teacher and then not have one by the end of the semester or you might start off as the living environment teacher, but because the physics teacher quit, you're now the physics teacher. - Professional developments are mandatory to attend, but are not helpful. - Long hours (7:45 am- 4:15PM) but you end up staying later most of the time to grade or lesson plan. - No per session pay when covering a class. Unlike the DOE you don't get a say wether you want to cover the class or not. You get an email in the morning or a post it note while you're teaching that you're covering a class next period during your prep. - Teacher evaluation system is terrible (ask them to explain TCP during the interview and you'll see). - At will employment (they can fire you without reason, but you don't need to give a two week notice). - Grading policy is terrible (teachers were told to drop assignments in the grade book if too many students failed the assignment). - Some teachers can write their own curriculum and some can't for certain subjects.

Explore other reviews about DREAM

5.0
Jul 11, 2025
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Enthusiastic staff, gifted kids, leadership open to improvements/always changing, lots of support, lax schedule

Cons

Punishment/disciplinary methods are supposed to be consistent by book but in practice every educator has their own -and very different- method. Kind of confusing for both kids and staff. Don't know if this is related but there's definitely a kid favoritism/teacher's pet energy going on. One actual con is that the behavioral and competence range is HUGE and it's kind of dismissed. Some kids are extremely gifted and hardworking, others cause problems everyday and are evidently behind. Doesn't only cause tensions between the kids but is also hard to manage - makes the whole "we are family" method feel like we're disregarding the "advanced" kids. Need more than just having more educators/coaches in the room to help out with these kids. These are problems in any school but ones I feel like the school should have addressed with all it's resources

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