Supportive mission undermined by toxic internal culture
Pros
Supporting educators and administrators at schools and districts with the goal of improving student outcomes. Statewide work. External messaging leads to a genuine sense of enthusiasm upon hire.
Cons
Terrible onboarding process never improved. Inconsistent application of expectations across agency and staff. Leadership talks about equity, but internal advocacy for equity efforts are dismantled, and genuine advocates are shut down, removed from responsibilities, and micromanaged. Insider culture. Employees are to do as they are told, and any critical feedback is perceived as a threat. Employees learn to stay quiet or risk losing their jobs. Departments and divisions are separated from each other in a way that makes it hard to collaborate broadly. Internal favoring of friends and family for job hires, including a daughter managing her dad, and the superintendent’s wife working at the agency (and promoted via a reorganization). Multiple reorganizations feel like constant shifting sands under the feet of staff and reduce staff productivity. The most stressful job ever. Multiple staff fired - many who participated in equity work - with little or no notice. Multiple staff leave because of the disfunction at the agency. It seems that people who know about the negative parts of what is happening there and push for change are discredited and dismissed, often literally, from their jobs - with little to zero notice. A shared internal understanding among non-executive staff about the level of stress and anxiety caused by this culture. Wasted time and effort on projects that never see the light of day because of communication glitches, micromanagement, and perfectionism. An extremely bureaucratic and dysfunctional working environment.
