Pros
The students are great to work with, and some really caring mentors. Most learning centers try with the monies they get to provide for kids. Kids like the small safe environments. Mental health team and other support teams really seem to care about the needs of the kids. Decent pay, decent benefits, some good co-workers
Cons
Top Administration is far removed from the day to day operations of learning centers. They do not understand or seem to care about the educational needs for urban students(especially ELL learners), and use money in a poor fashion. Learning centers go without much needed resources and timely follow through and training to be successful. A lot of time and money seems to be on advertising and promoting Hope, but then there is no follow-through in doing what is right for kids. What is crazy is that this has gone for about 10 years? Curriculum training has been a joke, and lack of implementation caused serious gaps for students who were already behind. Some students missed whole quarters worth of work which cannot be made up. ( Some academic leads only work part-time, and others do not even answer their phones to help staff)