All Looks, No Substance - Teacher DREAM Employee Review

-As a whole, Dream is more focused on image than output. Looking good on the outside and expanding the network are prioritized over actually fixing challenges within the school. They have a huge team devoted to this yet no curriculum development team. This means teachers must pick up the slack and create curriculum, unit plans, scope and sequences etc. etc. from scratch on their own time because Dream refuses to purchase a curriculum. -They often "borrow" teaching methods from other networks like Success Academy and Achievement First and implement it half heartedly leading to confusion and disorganization over curriculum, school culture and, perhaps most egregiously, DEI work -Despite all the work that has been done by teachers devoted to a more equitable education, Dream leadership expects teachers to follow "Teach Like a Champion" management strategies to a school with mostly students of color. This is wildly inappropriate for a school to claims to care about social justice and SEL - It seems like over and over again, Dream puts children last, going as far as to prioritize office space over having sufficient classrooms, leading to middle school and elementary having to share classrooms and insufficient space being available for small groups and testing accommodations. -Job descriptions when you apply are unclear so when you're hired there are a lot of things on your plate you didn't initially know about - Poor handling of HR issues. If you ever have an issue don't go to HR because they won't help and might even make things worse. - Leadership often speaks to staff in a manner that is not professional enough for the work environment and contributes to low morale and confusion - There is low synergy between teachers and leadership - Management styles vary widely across leadership leading to inconsistent direction amongst different grades. Some teachers will be completely ignored while other are micromanaged -They accept students of various needs without considering if they have the resources to support them and meet their needs. --There is inconsistent behavior management expectations with some students expected to constantly "sit in SPORT with a bubble and tracking the speaker" while other students literally run around the building, throw things, harm other students, with no consequence or restorative practices - Dream has unreliable contract rollouts that seems intentional to prevent staff from leaving instead of putting the work in to make them want to stay. The school year is over in a week and teachers still don't have their offers for next year when most schools hand them out in March and April -- The system to gauge performance feels arbitrary and misaligned to payscale and very secretive because the salaries vary widely between teachers that are technically on the same place on the payscale - They are not aligned to their own maxims, and will use them to manipulate teachers like their maxim of “Dream is family” often used to guilt-trip teachers into doing more for less when they aren’t being supported by the organization. This leads to 0 work/life balance and no time for employees to spend with their actual families.