Pros
The best part of LBLP is the experience. It’s great if you’ve not had any previous experience teaching or tutoring.
Cons
But as a caveat to the pro, the experience that you will be sold and the experience you will receive is exactly what it feels like to buy something online for a good price and have it show up completely different from what you ordered. Some of the kids have a lot of other stuff going on, whether the kids are SpEd or have behavioral issues, the training received at Lindamood-Bell is not comprehensive enough to fully prepare one who lacks teaching experience with how much they are going to be expected to do in those situations. It’s extremely, utterly, and completely mentally and emotionally taxing as there are never really any breaks at this establishment. In my role , I’ve consistently had to work through breaks and lunches to match the expectations meant of me. I’ve had multiple conflicts with the manager. When I was out sick, I was still expected to work through planned vacation time that I wanted to continue to use to heal from covid-19. Though I communicated this with my manager, I was questioned everyday as to whether or not I would be able to work, when I would be able to work, or to do something work related. Meanwhile when my other coworkers were sick, they were not treated the same way and were given the time they needed to recover. Our manager creates an environment where we cannot grow or develop without having to be put down first. When we make errors on evaluations, he copies the errors and makes us keep a file full of them when in reality none of us are as experienced/developed enough to administer a perfect and spotless eval as he wants. This does not refine us as employees as it’s not direct nor is it constructive. It’s a very passive slap on the wrist and doesn’t teach the tester the proper habits/guides they should follow in order to truly administer to the best of their abilities. The development process for promotional roles are outdated, rigid, and in all reality not really applicable to the real life application of these roles. The videos used in these trainings are who knows how old and only serve to show that “hey we at least have something to show you for 3 hours” meanwhile a big part of the culture is not wasting frames. Those inconclusive trainings are one of the biggest frame wasters. I was sped through my development and never got to refine my skills properly so now everytime I make an error, the manager will throw me under the bus and say “If I were a good employee I would be able to get x,y, and z done at the same time” When in reality my development was completely brushed off for the last 4 months in order to develop someone else into a full management role. Not to mention it’s impossible to get a time off request approved in a timely manner. I actually even had to cancel a request I made due to us having multiple evals scheduled on one day when we only have 2 testers total. The amount of stuff you will do, will definitely vary on your role. I wouldn’t recommend this job or my center to anyone ever as I would not want them to have to go through what I went through.
