Stacy, Youngstown

I have worked at several Charter schools throughout Youngstown and Cleveland and I can say that I have worked with some of the best teachers ever. The problem is the Charter schools that are for profit. The teachers are severely underpaid, and materials to aide students learning are non existent. Students were given mock OAA’s once a month that took 3 days of learning away from the students. Attendance was horrible and yet students were still passed along to the next grade because attendance sheets were manipulated.

Most of the students had been kicked out of their previous schools for behavior. Some students were sent there because their parents wanted a better education for their children but they are not getting it because of all the behaviors. There are absolutely no repercussions for these behavior students either because the school will lose money if they expel them. The accountability in these schools are extensive by the state already but there are many things these schools do that can get by accountability laws.

Many of the teachers I worked with had the same problems as I had. When you are working all the time and do all the right things and the school district is working against you and the ones who are truly there for an education, it is really frustrating. In my last school, we literally had a student physically abuse several teachers and they would not expel this student. Most charter schools do not have a special education class; they hire Special Education teachers but they have so many students that they can not even get to all of the in a day. All classes in Charter school are integrated with little or no help from SPED teachers who are qualified to deal with multiple learning and behavioral disabilities. Every teacher knows that these students do better in small classroom settings and not with a classroom of 40 students.

I have given up on my dream of teaching because of the way education is today. In Ohio, it isn’t about teaching and learning it’s about getting the most money for each student and that is where all the problems start and end.