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      Laradon

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      Laradon Reviews

      3.5

      55% would recommend to a friend

      (60 total reviews)
      avatar

      Doug McNeill

      70% approve of CEO

      61% positive business outlook

      Laradon has an employee rating of 3.5 out of 5 stars, based on 60 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The Laradon employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Non-profit and NGO industry (3.7 stars).

      Reviews by job title

      60 reviews
      1.0
      11 Sept 2016

      Run away fast and Don't Look Back.

      Paraprofessional
      Recommend
      CEO approval
      Business outlook

      Pros

      As everyone in these posts have mentioned, the staff who work for Laradon are quality people. Compassionate, friendly, people that usually love the kids they work with. The vacation time is pretty good, though that may change in January.

      Cons

      - Management - Safety - Training - Stress - No real breaks The kids are dangerous. Every day you work for Laradon, you risk serious injury because of the nature of the kids. They can be lovable, but it's one of the single, highest stress environments you can put yourself into. Chances are, you will get struck by a child/teen/adult who may be as strong if not stronger than you are. This is their last chance for being enrolled in any kind of school, which means they have already been rejected by public schools due to their negative behaviors. Working with the kids can give you moments of personal value in developing their skills to return to the rest of society, but in practice it isn't like that. It's much closer to a preschool for adult sized toddlers. If you can handle that, then by all means. But it isn't worth the pay. Many of the staff have gone home crying after work from how difficult it is, including myself. There is a lot of pressure to behave in very specific ways around the children and often it isn't possible. The Laradon administration recently blended all of the teams across the entire school in an attempt to make things better. It has created a very negative and poor morale environment of which most people there actively hate their jobs. Presently, the management is actually working on ideas and incentives to prevent people from calling out at work, including banning call outs without vacation time. They've been hiring new waves of staff who have no idea how to work with the kids and they're losing staff left and right. To my knowledge, 8 people have quit this week, if that gives you some idea of how poorly the site is being managed now. I will re-iterate what I mentioned earlier. Run Away and do Not join this company or you will hate yourself for it.

      avatar
      Laradon Response
      9y
      The Laradon School is designed to meet the needs of students with intellectual disabilities, Autism, Speech/Language impairments coupled with challenging behaviors. Students are referred to Laradon by local school districts based on the quality academic and behavior programs that are tailored to meet the individual and unique needs of our students. New staff are provided a detailed orientation, based on person centered services, Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) and a crisis intervention training which focuses on lower level interventions up to physical management interventions. The Laradon School has a highly experienced multi-disciplinary team, familiar with the population served to develop educational behavior plans to maximize student success. Employment with Laradon is not for everyone and takes a very special person. We are continuously reviewing our practices to improve overall services and welcome feedback.
      2.0
      11 Jan 2014

      More of a holding site than a school

      Teacher assistant
      Recommend
      CEO approval
      Business outlook

      Pros

      Very friendly co-workers, benefits after 3 months

      Cons

      It was perfectly acceptable for these children to be aggressive towards staff (punching, hitting, grabbing hair), and there were no consequences. It ran more like a babysitting service than a school. There were no real treatment plans that seemed to be followed other than "make it through the day and hope no one gets hurt". These are children that are removed from regular school special ed programs. The school was founded as a sort of a vo-tech, giving these children skills that would help them contribute to society. They seem to have lost their way from their original purpose.

      2.0
      2 Apr 2022

      Unique

      Residential counselor
      Recommend
      CEO approval
      Business outlook

      Pros

      Job is basically to supervise kids with I/DD and pretty serious trauma. They’re hilarious and usually fun to hang with. Applicants should know many are violent when they’re upset. Staff use restraints regularly to keep everyone safe but occasionally kids still do some pretty serious damage to staff. Direct supervision is OK and occasionally great, but upper management needs pretty serious restructuring and rethinking. There’s always drama among the staff but it’s entirely possible to avoid getting caught up in it by being kind to everyone. The good stuff: 1:1 ratio, hilarious stories, every day is different, tons of camaraderie with coworkers, cool team for the most part, good amount of downtime, mgmt will work with you if you need accommodations, you can take a kid off-campus and avoid the mayhem for a day, the BCBA is great, it is explicitly trans-affirming and a safe place for kids and adults to be out, and there’s a million opportunities to learn something new from your coworkers.

      Cons

      Pay and benefits (no bonuses, almost no raises, and literally terrible holiday policy, also disparities within the same position); unresponsive management that will let problems get out of control before they address them; inconsistency with behavior plan implementation; supposed to be “short-term” residential but kids stay there for years beyond where the program is helping them; seriously *bad* communication as to changes in policy; staff buying kids tickets and things because there is little access to org money to do activities with them; organization spending money on stuff no one wants (e.g. tearing down b-ball court to put in a parking lot, tablets, renovation of new building) instead of investing in their residents and employees by purchasing memberships to museums and parks, giving cost of living raises, putting in a playground, professional development, program development, etc; questionable hires; really good staff leaving all the time because they are under-appreciated or unsupported or actively ignored by management when they bring ideas; occasional understaffing that results in dangerous situations like kids or staff getting hurt or kids running to I-25 or jumping into traffic; no structure within the kids’ days; women and especially women of color picking up the bulk of the cleaning and “domestic” stuff because the supervisors don’t tell the men to buck up; management turning a blind eye to dangerous working conditions; damage control is the modus operandi; need I go on.

      Viewing 1 - 3 of 60 Reviews
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      ReviewsLaradon reviews

      Glassdoor has 63 Laradon reviews submitted anonymously by Laradon employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if Laradon is right for you.