Pros
Spacious, clean school, co-teachers are amazing
Cons
There's nepotism and favouritism everywhere here. Throughout the school year, you lose your breaks because admin doesn't have proper indoor recess supervision schedule, so teachers have to supervise their own class so teachers don't get enough breaks, not even a bathroom break. There are times when you can't even go to the washroom until the end of the school day. There's a lot of micromanagement from admin. You could get observed on a daily basis and feel like a child. The school doesn't get funded for special needs students, there's a real lack of resources and never enough teacher assistants. Most times, there's never enough paper. We always ran out of paper and the photocopiers are always broken and doesn't get fixed for 1-3 weeks, so teachers have to print at home, use their own ink, paper, staples, laminate, hole puncher, etc. Class sizes are maxed out between 24-28 students. Teachers always get blamed for everything and there's always finger pointing from admin to teachers so you can already imagine that admin throws their teachers under the bus countless times. You could lose your spare/break if it lands on prayer time. It's hard to find subs, there's never enough subs. There were times when teacher assistants were used to supervise classes without any Alberta-certified teacher present, then, they pull out other teachers from their spares/breaks to cover blocks of the absent teacher either because they're trying to save money or they can't find any subs. It's an Islamic school but the school culture doesn't feel Islamic at all, instead it feels worse than the public school. Admin creates too many events all throughout the year, leaving the teachers too fatigued, too exhausted, too overworked. A lot of times, they will schedule events during report card season, or schedule several school-wide events all in the same month. There are times when you'll be treated unfairly, unjustly, and sometimes, admin can make you feel uneducated, unprofessional, undervalued, and unappreciated because they never fail to criticize everything wrong that you're doing, and never acknowledge you for the good ones, they nitpick a lot. There are several people whom they've hired as teachers who don't possess appropriate or proper credentials to be teaching in the first place. This has been the worst job experience of my entire life! If you love yourself and you value your time and you care for your mental health, then don't work for the Edmonton Islamic Academy, you'd be doing yourself a favour. Do it for your physical and mental health. Trust me, you don't want to work here.