Nobel Learning Communities Reviews

Pros

kids made it worthwhile and fun

Cons

pay was horrible and no respect

Advice to Senior Management

GET YOUR ACT TOGETHER and pay your staff

Pros

Ability to grow within company, strong schools and managment, great ED's who are understanding and realistic, better benifits than most childcare centers, the company see's preschhol level teachers as educators and supports thier efforts, paid trainings

Cons

Expensive benfits with limited coverage, poor pay rates at school level, disconnect between Corp reality and school level reality,

Advice to Senior Management

There is, or was a show on NBC called Under Cover Boss (watch it), you should get to know who is working at the individual school level and really understand thier schools & personal needs. The teachers that work for your school can not afford to have thier own children attend them, something seems very off balanced. Recognize when people are working day and night to make you & thier school look good, don't just praise the people who have improved (with an easy budget) or the ones you don't expect things from and then they do one thing and its like they are God all the sudden. Look who is really working hard and what school have shown the most growth and improvment over several years and ask them how and why, then share with others. Nobel can not function without great teachers, and school managment, show them that you know this and depend on them and care about who they are.

Pros

One pro is that I received very good professional development from ONE supervisor I worked under who is no longer there. 2nd, made good friends.

Cons

No opportunities for career advancement. Favoritism is commonplace by principals, which is really unprofessional and based on personality match, not on merit. Raises were frozen for 4 (four) years! Pay is equivalent to catholic school teacher pay -- but with horrible benefits. 3 days of sick pay per year. No personal days. Expected to work evenings for marketing/curriculum purposes (about 1 per month). Watch kids in morning AND recess. High insurance costs. No pension added to your salary. 401K that you pay into from your already very poor salary. Information sharing from principal to staff is very poor. (If you happen to be near the office, you may get the message.) CEO continues to get bonuses. Teachers work hard and are not paid to reflect credit for their work of trying to create a strong reputation for Nobel. After all , the CEO is NOT building the reputation! All of this leads to extremely low morale at school -- which leads to gossip and comraderie built on criticizing the school. It's emotional survival.

Do not take a job here if you can. Or if you must, get out asap. Which is what most do and why turnover is extremely high with Nobel/Chesterbrook.

Advice to Senior Management

Try making decisions with integrity and ethical behavior.

Pros

To have love and care of the children is very rewarding, watching them grow, explore, try new things and learn every day.

Cons

Working with a diverse geroup of women who all think they have the answers and know just a tad bit more then the next.

Advice to Senior Management

be around more to watch and see what is really going om and who is doing what is required of them

Pros

Friendly Staff and parents. Fun events for staff to participate in.

Cons

Low pay, Expensive benefits and reviews rarely happen.

Advice to Senior Management

Fight for higher pay for your employees

Pros

Teachers and staff are well educated and appreciated by the management.
All professional and personal needs are met.

Cons

The low economy did not affect the enrollment; on the contrary, the enrollment has increased. However, the wage has been frozen for three years.

Pros

compensation was fair but not worth the frustration

Cons

It is very easy to see that to make a profit (v. a non-profit school) the company takes its 30 percent through shortchanging parents, students and employees. Employees are frustrated and stressed, which is passed on to the students and customer parents.

Advice to Senior Management

Listen to your school leadership. Ask questions, don't do business by email, rather than face-to-face. Realize that you are not running a retail operation, but an educational institution. Senior management, with one exception, are not educators, and it shows.

Pros

Working with the Children and to co-teachers for the most part are very awesome and great source of ideas and networking.

Cons

The Principal and Vice Principal have very low communication skills with the staff regarding when new children will be joining the class. At one point I got told the morning before the child started. On discovery days, I never was informed when to expect the child and parent/s. As a teacher I started as a new Infant teacher and was jostled around for about a month when they moved up the children I was helping teach, both me and the teacher that had been there for a while did not know when they were doing transitions or when the children would come back to our room, neither did we know when I would be pulled out because of low numbers or she would be sent home.

Another thing is when I did the right thing by giving them two weeks notice they began to treat me unfairly. All that I ask is that I be treated fairly with the same courtesy as any teacher that is staying that means getting my hours, not more, not less. Each day this week of my first week of my two week notice I have been sent home early. In two cases they have not had enough courage to tell me themselves my co-teacher had to come in and tell me. I have been sent home three days three hours early and one day an hour early. I guess I will have to wait and see what happens tomorrow, I think numbers are low and I will be home all day, in that case I will be very upset.

Advice to Senior Management

Open up communication, don't treat your teachers like they are replaceable at any second and you will have more continuity of staff. Encourage education by offering raises for education. Become non-corporate(I don't believe that Childcare Places should be owned by large corporations).

Pros

One of the principals I worked under commended me for my work.

Cons

Just everything from poor communication, lack of integrity, unfair/unequal treatment toward employees. But worst of all is that this is a business that feeds into a perception of females as persons whose roles are to give without getting back, nurture and bend over backwards, but not provide to them the pay and benefits that reflect the importance of what these women do - and certainly not treat them with respect, dignity or equal professionalism - that they lend toward the men in the company. This is a widely-held perception in the childcare industry (and for them in their elementary level as well). Unfortunately, as long as there will be women who allow this perception, these abusive industries will thrive.

Advice to Senior Management

Allow opportunities to hear from your teachers -- they need to provide you with feedback on how the schools are doing. Because they have the real picture of whose doing their job, how the principal is handling problems, parents, staff; and other issues. The fact that you have not set up opportunities for senior management to receive feedback from teachers - says a great deal about how much you value their input.

Pros

It's great working with children and involved parents

Cons

pay is not to great, no raises and if there is it's usually 2 cents.

Advice to Senior Management

For the corporate level, they need to realize who makes them money and stop the bean counting