City Year reviews

-It's tough to say whether the City Year "culture" is a pro or a con, a lot of what makes the experience unique comes from their CY lingo, team chants, etc. For the most part I got a kick out of it but the slim majority of my coworkers found it belittling. You're told to be professional one minute then do banana jumping jacks the next. -Work/life balance is non-existent and the tasks occasionally unfocused. You'll show up at 7am, stay at school until 5-7pm, then half the time have some additional misc. task to be done at the downtown office (long commute?) until even later. The heavy teamwork emphasis can make this uncomfortable for those who just don't have that amount of time on their hands. 60hr work weeks are the norm.

City Year is ridiculous. They go out of their way to hire "diverse" people, at the cost of results and efficacy. High school grads still wet behind the ears, directionless college drop outs, and college grads with no prospects. They'll hire people who can barely read or write, let alone who should be around children. They hire drug addicts, alcoholics, hateful and downright abusive individuals. Reports of drug and alcohol use AT THE SCHOOL, DURING THE SERVICE DAY are punished with a slap on the wrist. City Year, rather than trying to hire people who will better the schools (or the kids, apparently whom it's all about), cares more about the numbers of "diverse" (cough*inept) people rather than actual results. This is par for the course though. If you notice, City Year very rarely can prove that corps members are actually effective at raising scores or preventing drop-outs. Rather, they just report on the sheer number of hours served, and very dubious stats that are not actually due to CM interventions or service. We are poorly hired, poorly trained, poorly treated, poorly managed, and largely ineffective. I really regret spending this year with City Year. I wish I had looked into literally ANY other in-school service program, rather than trusting that City Year was a good organization.