Florida Virtual School Reviews

They offer a competitive salary.

Many of the reviews here discuss being overworked. I have worked here as an instructor full time for a year now and I have not experienced this. I have definitely had very busy days-usually Mondays-but I have never felt like I am being tasked with too much. Teachers are available to students from 8-8 Monday to Friday; however, you are not expected to work more than 8 hours a day. We are given 24 hours to respond to any incoming communication we miss, and 48 hours to complete incoming grading. This means I can schedule work time and family time and not worry that I am ignoring my students for family or vice versa. I schedule my work hours and I stick to them. If I miss incoming calls or texts from students, I return them during the next chunk of work time I have scheduled. It is not a difficult balance to maintain if you are well-organized and self-disciplined enough to work from home and motivate yourself. We are also not given "hundreds" of students as someone mentioned. Sometimes we do have quite a few; I had 180 once. However, this was comparable to the number I had in my classroom during my last year in a brick and mortar school. At least now my students turn in maybe 3 assignments a week apiece, so my grading is actually much less, even though I can sometimes have more students. We are supposed to talk to each of those students once each month, at least...that is not difficult to do. We DO work year-round; however, we get two weeks PAID off for Winter Break, one week at the 4th of July, and THREE weeks of vacation time to use whenever we want. We also get most bank holidays paid off. That's still over 6 weeks of paid vacation time each year. Brick and mortar teachers are NOT paid over summer vacation, although people outside the field still don't seem to realize that. Additionally, we accrue sick and personal days each pay period, which we NEVER have to use. I have not had to take one sick day since I've worked here. When I had a bad cold and migraine, I texted the students I had appointments with on that day and explained the situation to them, and I was able to reschedule those appointments and instead focus on feeling better, even though it was a Wednesday. Further, when I told my Lead I had done this, she helped me clear my grading so I could do even LESS work that day! My principal and Lead (like a department head) are very caring and helpful; they never make me feel like I need to meet impossible expectations, and they are SO knowledgeable in their field. I feel like I am actually learning from them, and I did not feel that way in my 7 years in a brick and mortar school, where principals seem like they are running a business and there is a sense of elitism with the APs. FLVS has been amazing, and I will never leave by choice. Really guys, if you can make a schedule and stick to it, and motivate yourself from home, this is the perfect job. You'll actually get to know your students, too. Mine at least are much more open in one-on-one conversations than they every were in the classroom. You have real, meaningful teaching moments here.