Lots of downs, a few ups. - Anonymous employee Achievement First Employee Review

Thank you for writing this review and pushing us. You clearly see the best in our kids and in your team, and have some extremely important challenges for us to be better for all of our kids and teammates. It sounds like you experienced too much power, not enough empowerment. I think we’ve all experienced the difference between leaders who want our direct input because they know they can’t make the best decision on their own, and leaders who are asking for artificial input on plans that are already “fully baked.” While we have many leaders who deeply engage their teams for input, we’re falling short overall. According to our organizational health survey, only two thirds of our team members (67%) feel like they have enough input on school-wide decisions. That’s a big problem – considering 100% of our team is working hard every day to deliver on our promise to families. We’ve spent all year training our leaders on warm-demanding leadership, and one third of our framework is actually about listening. Next year, we’re training on warm-demanding leadership of teams, because we have to make sure that every leader understands why and how we must engage our teams in key decisions – so that we can make the best decisions and get authentic commitment from the entire team. I think this is connected to the lack of diversity you cited. As a network, most of our school leaders and over 40% of our employees identify as people of color, and that leaves a tremendous difference with our students, for whom nearly 100% are people of color. Our teams are not yet diverse enough, so it’s even more important that our principals and deans are leading powerfully and inclusively. When people don’t feel like they have an authentic voice across their team, is has a negative impact on all teammates, but even more so for members of “outsider” groups, who don’t always benefit from the privileges and safeties experienced by “insider” groups (e.g., white male leaders, like myself). I believe our work on people leadership development will make us more inclusive – and therefore stronger as a whole. As you pointed out, the exact same work has to be done with kids. We have to create the space for them to display and develop their own powerful and unique identities. We are making a huge commitment to this next year. Nearly all of our schools are starting the process of developing compass circles, a ritual developed by Valor Academy in Nashville as a way to build community and create the space for social-emotional learning. We’re actually starting this work with our adults, because “social emotional learning” is not something that adults have and kids don’t, and our adults need to experience it so that they can bring that work to kids. This is a new frontier for us, but one that is critical if we’re going to create the communities that maximize growth and really prepare our kids for college and beyond. -Tom Kaiser, Chief Talent Officer