Responsive Education Solutions Reviews

Unprofessional and disorganized. Yes you are EXPECTED to work very long hours for free. The pay is LESS than the pay for a 1st year teacher. They do not pay based on years of service. You will not receive a pay increase. They do not care about or provide professional development. I agree with the previous review, you will be handed curriculum and expected to implement it with no training and you will be written up if they deem it unsatisfactory with no evidence to support what has been written. You will not be given examples to follow or ancillary materials. They are disorganized and the rules change daily. It's like someone is calling the shots from the sky. The next week the protocol changes again. Expect to be treated unprofessionally, belittled and talked down to as if you did not earn a degree/s. Run to the closest "REAL" school district.

I could write a novel over the questionable business ethics of a company that brands itself as a means of giving children "hope." The company's glossy promotional material hardly reflects the dilapidated status of some of its school campus. Over my two years I observed: 1. Rampant nepotism in both leadership and staff. 2. TEA violations; both campuses I worked at had multiple issues that were often swept under the rug and not communicated to parents. Testing irregularities, failure to complete SpEd-associated paperwork and accommodations, un-certified staff administering state tests, and the (sometimes) illegal student : teacher ratios are examples. One of my classes was 40:1 without an instructional aid. 3. Violations of separation of Church and State/Political Bias: One campus's leader would openly proselytize at school functions to students and staff. One of the campus' had pro-intelligent design biology textbooks (whether or not these were used is unknown to me). RES also doesn't hide its conservative-tilt with newsletters championing school vouchers, school funding, and Betsy DeVos' efforts to dismantle the US Department of Education. 4. ZERO to little support of extracurriculars, athletics, or fine arts. If it's not testable, it's not given priority. Not once in any of the corporate town hall meetings did Chuck Cook or any others ever discuss fine arts or athletics; it was always about measuring campuses' successes off standardized test scores. 5. Rampant disciplinary issues and "Passing The Buck" on responsibility 6. Lack of meaningful Professional Development: If you teach a subject other than a testable one then be prepared to grovel for any sort of professional development. Many PD sessions are slapped together by hapless employees/staff just prior to a meeting. 7. A disturbing lack of support staff on campuses: BOTH campuses on which I worked lacked support systems that would be present in ISD schools in the same region. One campus didn't have an on-site counsellor, school nurse, or security force; there was a security guard but the campus "lost funding." One of the schools I worked at did not have a SpEd coordinator until mid-semester, while another didn't have an ESL coordinator for months. How on earth these campuses were allowed to operate was beyond me. 8. A constant revolving door: One campus I worked at lost 8 staff members (over 40%) in a school year. One grade level lost BOTH teachers initially assigned to them. 9. Salary / Pay: Be expected to work just as hard as a teacher in an ISD with far less funding; some teachers I worked with made just over $35K before taxes/benefits. Many local DFW ISDs pay at the least $10K more. 10. Testing Factories disguised as "Schools:" Not once at either of my schools did I ever experience a feeling that I was working in an institution that fostered a positive learning environment. Everything was geared toward the test and as long as the scores matched/surpassed the local school district that was all that mattered; as if test scores correlate to QUALITY of one's education.