Pros
-SMALL CLASS SIZES. Class sizes are kept remarkably small compared to public school. Less than 20 students. -PARENTS ARE INVESTED IN THE EDUCATION. Although parents don't always want to hear the truth, if you are careful in how you present it to them they will get on your side and work with you to help their kids. Generally you can enforce stricter grading policies than in public school. -SUPPORT STAFF. The number of support staff at my school has gone down since Spring acquired us but is still fairly high. They are often undertrained but have their heart in the right place and they take even more of a pay and benefits cut than the teachers- plus they are required to work summer.
Cons
-PAY AND BENEFITS. The pay cut is at least 15k compared to local schools. There is no salary schedule. Raises are just cost of living adjustments- no raise given for experience so the pay gap will just grow. The 401k plan matching is 1.5% with it taking four years to fully vest. The healthcare is good for just you but they do not cover any part of your family premium. The tuition reduction for having your child enrolled at the school is 50% -NO CLEAR CURRICULUM GUIDANCE. We are given curriculum but no real training or hard and fast mandates on how to implement it. Spring does not go through the same review process that school districts do when adopting a new curriculum- they just discuss with the principals and then shove it on teachers with no training. -STUDENTS WITH SPECIAL NEEDS ARE NOT PROPERLY SERVED. Apparently Spring has a policy of not enrolling any students with special needs- but this contradicts the reality that many parents pay the extra money for private school because their child needs additional attention. Spring needs to be honest that students with often severe special needs come to their schools and should develop a process for evaluating and communicating their disability and accommodations. Students with severe behaviors and oppositional defiant disorder are not being removed from the school for the sake of tuition dollars. General education teachers do not have the training to assess and accommodate these students. -NEPOTISM AND FAVORITISM. There is often no formal promotion system, so admin's best friends or family members get the more desirable positions. -UNDERSTAFFED/NO SUBSTITUTES AVAILABLE. There is no substitute database like at the public schools, so when a teacher is out they just pull from random places and do not fully arrange coverage for the person they pulled. Coverage is often left to the teachers who already have students in their classroom and whose primary focus should be teaching them. -NO DISCIPLINE STRUCTURE. There is no structure for discipline, it is implied that it should be handled by the classroom teacher and almost never be escalated to administration. -PARENTS ARE CUSTOMERS. The parents are treated as customers and the customer is always right. You often are encouraged to avoid the tough reality if it isn't what the parent wants to hear, or to sugarcoat the rigor of your class and the performance of the child. There is often major grade inflation and teachers are encouraged to give the vast majority of students "A"s regardless of performance.
