Tilden Preparatory Reviews

New instructors need to work really odd hours like from 8-10am, 1:30-3:30pm, and then 4-5pm 5 days a week with nothing in between, requiring you to either drive twice to work in the same day or that sit around twiddling your thumbs. if you choose the latter, you are going to miss out on 10 or 11 hours of your day to only get paid for 3 or 4 hours. In fact they kind of rely on a constant flow of new students leaving and joining to make it easier for them to schedule "enough" hours for their veteran instructors. As a new instructor it is your job to fill in the gaps. I was let go at the end of summer due to low enrollment during the school year and then went online to see that they are hiring new instructors in my area of expertise, meaning that they never intended on giving me full hours and that they simply just lied to me. They instituted a hybrid program where all instructors were required to come onto campus to teach even when all of their students were still 100% online. This was "to encourage students to come back to in-person learning by showing them that we can do that for them". I asked around, and it appears as if only 8 out of over 80 students were signed up to be in the hybrid program. I also found out that about half of their veteran instructors opted out of summer, because they didn't want to be forced into in-person learning, and that I was let go so that they could give their students (who had become mine) back to their teacher from the school year. The estimated time it takes to complete a class that admin gives to the parent's of potential students is really the minimum hours for an above average student to complete the course. Management was pretty open about this when I asked them why the estimates are so low, and told me that parents wouldn't sign up if they knew how long it was goin to really take. Once parents find out that the estimates are not going to apply to their child, they have already prepaid for all of the estimated classes, and can't get that money back. they also don't want to do that as then all the progress their child made to getting a grade in that subject goes to waste. It basic sunk cost fallacy. The Administration at Tilden knows it, and they revel in taking advantage of it.

The owners of the organization have a well intentioned facade and seem to be very inexperienced in business management and ethics from the way Tilden is operated. Neither of them are actively engaged on campuses and have admitted to not knowing what is going on on their campuses. Please do research on the owners before taking a position here. There are no standardized policies or procedures which results in, little to no control over your schedule resulting in unpaid gaps, students/parents requesting to change teachers for reasons such as you are not moving the class fast enough or are out sick, teachers placed on probation without protocol, no protocol for reporting and resolving concerns that employees have, being forced to teach classes that have no curriculum, etc. This has led to uneven experiences amongst employees, some are granted vacation while some are not, some have 35+ hours while some have 17, some are not offered health insurance if they do not work enough hours, some placed on probation for logging hours incorrectly, some are not, some are allowed to develop curriculum while some are not, etc. It is unclear whether there is a level of favoritism and bias or complete disorganization on the part of Tilden but most likely some of both. Policies are consistently updated and changed which makes for a very confusing system to navigate. Administrators have an open-door policy, will listen to your concerns but never document or resolve them. They make all decisions without a policy that is transparent to teachers. This leads to a highly paranoid work environment especially considering on the Albany campus one of the managers has been complained about dozens of times over the years for her unprofessional demeanor but now essentially manages the campus. Curriculum is the bare minimum, 10-20 year old textbooks that students make fun of, skeletal tests and study guides, very few resources such as visual aides, graphs, organizers, worksheets, activities, creative assignments, teaching techniques, professional development or on campus counseling - all pertinent when working with students with varied learning styles and differences and ARE NOT provided. Students are questionably passing classes with A's and B's (Tilden does not give out C's or lower) when parents pressure management to finish a course in the advertised 30 hours or less. You could be asked to push a student along or accept assignments from other classes for credit. If you do not do so a student/parent may request to switch teachers. Rarely are teachers offered consistent full time work of 40 hours, when you first are hired, towards the end of the school year and in the summer expect about half those hours. Your hours will consistently shift as students finish, drop out or change teachers. There is no guarantee of full time work here. If you are an experienced teacher, someone with good credentials, or someone who has staunch educational ethics and teaching practices I highly recommend looking elsewhere. These are the teachers that leave and there is very high turnover throughout the year. This job is most suitable for recent college graduates with no work experience. Bottom line: this is a business and the customer comes first, parent and student opinions and requests reign supreme here and will always trump teachers concerns, knowledge and most importantly schedules. Your performance is based on parent and student reviews in what feels like a popularity contest. Your bonuses are based on this, your performance reviews rate this and you can be fired if too many students request to leave your classes. Work here if you feel as though your job security should be in the hands of high schoolers.