Challenger School reviews

I started out as an intern and eventually took over a preschool class at another campus after another teacher had to quit. My experience as an intern was awful. I got little to no feedback and the feedback I did receive was always negative and had nothing to do with my actual teaching. Once I was able to get my own class, I assumed I would be promoted to a preschool teacher’s pay. However, they never changed my title and therefore continued to pay me as an intern even though I was responsible for everything a normal teacher does. I was told that I had “potential” but my pay was never increased to match my job duties. Because of this, I felt taken advantage of. They are extremely weird about you taking time off. Whenever I requested time off, I had to remind my manager about it several times in the preceding days and weeks, and even then they sometimes wouldn’t approve it. They don’t have a sub system in place, so anytime a teacher is gone they scramble to find an intern to fill in. The benefits are extremely expensive. Medical and dental coverage for my husband and I cost over $600/month. At $14.50/hour, benefits took about half my paycheck! They give you basically no prep time. All of my prep time was done in the dark during the kids’ nap time (which they gradually decrease, so as the year goes on you get even less prep time), where I was interrupted every 5 seconds by kids who weren’t asleep. At staff meetings we were repeatedly told that we were not supposed to prep in the morning, during recess, etc. but were never offered any other prep time besides during their nap (which was extremely unproductive, as I described above). It just didn’t make any sense. A lot of teachers would come in early and/or take work home, which I refused to do on principle. If you’re paying me by the hour I will work the hours I’m being paid - no more, no less. Another thing is that the hours are extremely long, even for a teacher. They don’t pay for your lunch hour, so I was working from 8 to 5, M-F for 8 hours of pay. Overall, I would say to avoid Challenger if you can. Everything I learned or gained as a teacher, I did in spite of Challenger, not because of it.

- Huge teacher turnover rates. This is why they are constantly posting on job sites looking for new employees. They lose dozens of teachers every year and make no effort to retain them. - Big class sizes. 30 students crammed into a small room, just like a typical overrun public school. - Corporate does not care if you have valid concerns or feedback about anything. They will tell you to just leave if you’re “unhappy.” - Outdated curriculum and resources. No technology allowed, not even simple overhead projectors. - Curriculum focuses entirely on white men in history and white characters in literature, which is appalling considering over 90% of the student population in California Challenger campuses is non-white. Even for MLK Day, the curriculum includes nothing about him. Representation of diversity is desperately needed. - Policies, events, etc vary completely by campus. There is no uniformity and everything depends on who is running your campus at the time. - No fun allowed. You can’t decorate your classroom. You can’t hold spirit days, cultural days, or any other classroom events. There are no field trips. Anything that would actually be fun for the kids is not tolerated.