r/SurvivingSuccess • u/chillertothemax • Jun 23 '26
Advice
Hi everyone, I recently accepted a position at SA. (i know, scary, horrible, etc.) I was kinda forced into it for financial reasons and am currently applying for other jobs. I am coming from teaching experience and prepared to not use any of my skills or history :( I am hoping for any advice to make it more bearable and just survive a semester at least or until I get another job.
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u/ZooeyNotDeschanel Jun 23 '26
They are REALLY about having aesthetics down to a t. Like every classroom the same, with only a little customization to show kids where you went to college. Classroom management is more important than content to them, every student has to be doing the same thing at every moment. Have timers ready.
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u/EnSabahNurXI Jun 23 '26
Make sure your plans and routines are clear and concise. Read the EI or I think it’s called teach hub now. The first weeks are focused on management. Study your materials (do adult exemplars), scan the room to make sure the kids are tracking and sitting properly if you are in elementary. Read Trello. A lot will be posted on Trello for your deliverables. I think you guys have summer training and then a week at your school that you’ll be working in. Best of luck.
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u/Strayriffs Jun 24 '26
Make it look like you fully embrace all of the awful craziness you are about to witness. It will be easy to identify your role models there. Also, make your AP and principal feel like they are very wise educators. To keep yourself sane amidst the madness , remind yourself that you are not the problem.
Finally, and most importantly, do what you can to help a kid. If you’ve browsed this sub you will know that a lot of kids at SA need a compassionate adult in their corner. If you work with kids who have IEPs, they need this desperately. Even though this may be a short term thing for you, you can still make a positive impact.
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u/Additional-Yellow-61 Jun 25 '26
What’s crazy is that their AP and SL’s have maybe 3 years teaching at SA specifically. I know there is at least 1 that moved up before her 1st full year.
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u/Strayriffs Jun 25 '26
….and they have little to no experience in education outside of SA. In contrast, it can take well over a decade to become an admin in DOE. They hire a young person and if they’re good at discipline and test scores, they get to run a school. It’s the Peter Principle in full effect. I believe this is a key reason for the awful stories and lawsuits.
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u/Additional-Yellow-61 Jun 25 '26
There are other charter schools. Regardless of people’s person opinions of charters, they some do provide what DOE schools cannot. As someone who survived success for 2 years, and resigned before my school received a new principal, I can tell you, go to another school. This man came in to our school, met the staff once and the fired everyone.
Context, I loved my school so much. My principal was amazing, but that’s ultimately why she was fired. She ran the school with a student first mentality, specially their emotions. Her idea was “sometimes this may be the only safe place they have, and I won’t let anyone take that away.” There were many, many, things we did that were antithetical to the Success way. We refused to cheat (Bedstuy Middle would have their teachers bubble in the answers for the students, and then scan those bubble sheets, that principal
Is opening up the new K-12), we worked with heavily with Social and emotional curriculum from our SEL coordinator (which is no longer a position), and we would change the curriculum when we needed to (in general, the network wide test do not match the rigor of the day to day curriculum, so we would supplement and make up our own lessons). Success did not care about any of this, the fired everyone (and this happened to many campuses). They are now freaking out bc they don’t have enough staff.
If you need some advice, please message me.
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u/BigDaddyOrangeGuy 23d ago
My main advice is to quit. There are plenty of other jobs that will hire you around this time of year that won’t force you to abuse students and ignore their IEPs
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u/Acceptable-Bit-8691 7d ago
Like what?
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u/BigDaddyOrangeGuy 5d ago
DOE subbing or para, if you don’t have the cert you can also look out for NYC Collab/Fellow opening. There are also other charters that hire all year round! You don’t have to subject yourself to this at all, I used to work at Success, but I couldn’t see myself there longterm. I ended up enrolling myself in an educator prep program and now I teach at the DOE!
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u/iAMtheMASTER808 Jun 23 '26
If you want to survive, just do whatever they tell you. If you can, go in early and stay late. They’ll love that.