Incredible students, but micromanagement is a challenge - Teacher Shady Side Academy Employee Review

Good culture, fair coworkers, engaged students.

A lot of work in job

Amazing and inspiring colleagues Hard working students Excellent resources Teacher autonomy Excellent PD Great facilities The school WAS amazing under Tom Cangiano. The new administration has ruined everything.

So much unpaid work (really!) Very low salary Minimal respect for teachers Excessive duties Very heavy administration Teachers are required to coach two seasons of sports (unpaid) and do an additional 3 unpaid duties for a total of “5 duties.” Teachers are made to believe they are lucky to do this to support the ethos of the school. Staff meetings every week that could be an email. Sometimes the meetings were >2 hours long in which the head of school just summarized previous emails. I was spending about 50 hours a week on my normal teaching/grading/planning, with an additional 10-15 hours a week in extra duties. I tallied the time spent on unpaid duties and meetings that could have been an email one year, and arrived at 584 unpaid hours or 14.6 WEEKS of unpaid work. My wife, with an associates degree, made 20k more than me at work (I have 4 advanced degrees, including a Masters in education, and being a certified teacher - not all teachers at SSA are). If you walk past the teachers parking lot, you will see beat-up 15 year old low-end cars. Walk past the administrators parking lot and you will see lots of brand-new luxury cars. That says it all. Not only are there way too many administrators, they are paid way more than teachers. That tells you that money is more important than teachers at SSA.