They do not want licensed educators
Pros
Great parents, sweet kids, amazing behavior specialists and speech team.
Cons
There is a tattle tell culture at Spectrum. Everything you say can and will be twisted, misquoted, and taken out of context and used against you. They do not actually want licensed educators. They would prefer to promote paras to teacher status in order to not pay them as much. Spectrum does not protect it’s employees. If a student hurts you, they STRONGLY encourage you not to go to workers comp and if you do, it is a big strike against you. If a student draws blood or seriously injured you, you get written up for telling anyone about it. Paras rule the school, their word is valued over any educator at the school. I understand that there aren’t many places who specialize in teaching kids with autism, but if parents knew half of what went on behind the scenes at Spectrum, a lot would pull their children out. The majority of “teachers” at the school are not even close to being qualified to work there. Every “teacher” is required to write IEPs, track goals, and provide all services to students without having an education degree let alone a special education degree. Half of the time IEPs aren’t followed or are being made up because “teachers” don’t know what they are doing. The majority of the staff doesn’t even know what time school actually starts or ends, there’s not a set time! This school has a lot of potential, but it is completely unorganized. Also, apparently Spectrum doesn’t have the money to give teachers raises, don’t know what happened to all that COVID money. It didn’t go to classrooms.