Element Education Reviews

All employees are at-will and at the discretion of the CEO/Superintendent, Terri Novacek. Disagree with her, and risk losing your job. I was terminated after making a report to child protective services after my own child alleged sexual assault in her TK classroom at Community Montessori (one of Element’s two schools). The teachers, administrators, and support staff are all beholden to her will. Working at Element entails abandoning your moral compass, disregarding or manipulating Ed Code, a toxic work environment, deplorable health benefits, no consideration for staff ADA accommodations, and rock bottom pay per industry standards.

-The management are downright abusive to teachers. -Poor Working Conditions: The "school" is basically an old office building with a musty smell, old furniture, and it isn't very clean. To add to this, teachers often don't have a dedicated desk or office, so they have to sit in tiny student chairs or desks while management and admin get far more comfortable working conditions. Get ready for some serious back pain. -Teachers are not appreciated or valued at Element Education. Management consider their staff expendable. -Extremely Unstable Employment: Since management don't appreciate their staff, and they randomly fire everyone, and I mean everyone. You cannot trust them. -Its almost guaranteed you'll get fired or laid off no matter how hard you work, try, or stay there. The management are incompetent, but they are extremely arrogant and unaware of it. In fact, if you confront them on it, you'll get an unprofessional response with a statement something like this: "everyone else is doing great except for you." Yeah right! Those same staff they call "everyone else" were all told the same thing and were fired too. They simply don't care and don't appreciate you. Also, staff do talk amongst each other and know more than management think. -Its a miracle this school is still even open. This is because the education quality is very poor, teachers have zero say, and management only cares about getting more money and nothing else. Parents and students do notice, despite management thinking only they know -No matter what HR or management try to tell you to trick you into working in their abusive organization, you're always better off working somewhere else. There is no future at Element, regardless of how long anyone has worked there, management will suddenly fire people without warning. You're wasting your time working there, period. -Endless meetings and trainings about the same stuff. -You will be driving everywhere. -Pay is pitiful for what they ask if you! -Management are totalitarian! -If you're thinking about a job there or are so desperate you're considering accepting, you may want to think twice. -Accepting a job at this school may ruin your teaching career, either because management fires you on one of their power trips, and you become unemployed without a supervisor reference, or because seeing how they treat teachers is so traumatizing that you'll likely want to quit teaching and use your education and skills for something with a better pay and future. -You've been warned. -Oh yeah, did I mention terrible pay? And they may look for an excuse to lower your pay to "cut the cost" which in translation means pay raise at your expense for management. -After reading this, you get the picture. This employer treats staff as an unwanted expense, and nothing more.