Pros
The students and their parents. Although I could not utilize our parents as much as I would have liked, I greatly appreciated them. Most of the other teachers were great to collaborate with and supported one another the 3 years I was there.
Cons
All aspects of this 'business' should have sent me running from day one. If you are running a school with a business model and have no clue how to educate then the Superintendent/Principal/"Non profit" Chair that started this place is the right woman for the job. I am disgusted at the fact I had to lie to parents to cover her, knowing that huge amounts of money were given to those at the top. Not only do they have Charter salaries but they get all the money from this made up "charity" that manages the school. 'The Norcross Foundation'....whoops, I forgot they changed the name, '7 Degrees of Change' is a joke. I didn't see the big paychecks like many of the minions she has working for her but to do so would not have been worth it. There is no curriculum, we have had 10 years of fundraisers to save up for a playground that STILL does not exist, a closet sized library, and ZERO books for class subjects. We were copying worksheets that had been copied over and over for 30 years and nothing else. Why do you think parents are locked away from their children? That's right, doors lock down and you do not have a parent bring a forgotten homework paper, you can't walk back to the room after having lunch with our child, and you certainly can't just pop over for a visit. Every parent need to ask themselves why and what do you have to hide? IEPs won't happen. Teachers don't have a clue where they are and all of us see them for the first time at your annual meeting, even if 7 months has gone by. The therapists are NOT licensed. For those at the top to keep a little more cash for themselves, they take STUDENTS training to be Speech Therapists because they are free. Any outside evaluations will not be completed by just anyone, only those they have in their back pocket. The state DOES give money to charter schools and yet Norcross tells everyone they do not get a dime. What a huge lie that is very easy to check with the Department of Public Instruction. We use no one from Guilford County special ed even though every other charter in this state does so. They do not allow professional observations because no one is allowed to see how poor and disorganized this school really is.