How is diversity at City Year?

I loved my corps year but it was HARD and I know a lot of people that struggled severely. You'll learn to work with teams of people you like and dont like, how to motivate students, get a real hard look at our education system and its successes and failures. It's a great way to see if you really want to work in Ed and in what capacity.

The program is well meaning but they are putting young people in schools and often hundreds of miles away from their support systems without a lot of support - financial, professional, or mental health. If you're already a well adjusted person with strong support at home and you go with the flow and get along with others you'll do well.

You get to help kids who aren't otherwise supported learn and develop as people. There is some "Leadership After City Year" training (cover letters, resume, application help, and Operation Hope financial literacy).

Training is an extended diversity summit with occasional relevant asides. Most partner teachers have no idea of your purpose and are hypersensitive to any collaborative suggestions. Unnecessarily ridiculously long hours with no work before or after students arrive. SEL is pushed by site leadership but there is no time to implement it, as again teachers are unwilling and do not respect anything you suggest despite you seeing the students work (process not results, we rarely get to know anything about grades) way more than they do. Admin appreciates us for help with functions but do not give teachers any information on our purpose or support our organizational requirements. Also, the pay is pitiful, and you spend the school breaks doing more diversity workshops and "Leadership After City Year," with occasional assorted volunteer work sprinkled in.

The job is centered around service, so naturally it is very rewarding. I loved helping students, stepping into a mentorship role, and supporting my partner teacher. It felt like there was a great need for support at the school that I was able to help meet.

You are dealing with very difficult hours, emotions, and responsibilities with little training going in. Although there were trainings built throughout the program, they were more theoretical in nature rather than applicable skills. I also had a bad experience with my Team Lead which could have influenced my experience compared to others. Lastly, there was a lack of diversity in the program.

You get to help kids who aren't otherwise supported learn and develop as people. There is some "Leadership After City Year" training (cover letters, resume, application help, and Operation Hope financial literacy).

Training is an extended diversity summit with occasional relevant asides. Most partner teachers have no idea of your purpose and are hypersensitive to any collaborative suggestions. Unnecessarily ridiculously long hours with no work before or after students arrive. SEL is pushed by site leadership but there is no time to implement it, as again teachers are unwilling and do not respect anything you suggest despite you seeing the students work (process not results, we rarely get to know anything about grades) way more than they do. Admin appreciates us for help with functions but do not give teachers any information on our purpose or support our organizational requirements. Also, the pay is pitiful, and you spend the school breaks doing more diversity workshops and "Leadership After City Year," with occasional assorted volunteer work sprinkled in.

- Inclusive culture - Desire to see you succeed - Strong mission, vision, and values

- Undergoing financial difficulties that have led to multiple RIF cycles and furloughs

Young people can learn a LOT here about professionalism, work ethic, etc. The mission is good.

Very strict rules around fraternization, very intense workload, very bad pay

Made some incredible friends Learned a lot about myself and did a lot of professional development Worked with some amazing kids Most of the staff was awesome

Unlivable pay makes it incredible difficult for people to serve without familial financial support Incredibly long hours with very little forgiveness around it Cliquey hierarchical groups form quickly among corpsmembers and make a lot of drama Doesn't practice what it preaches re: self care, DBIE, belief in the power of young people A few "bad egg" staff members really soured a lot of the experience and the response to reasonable complaints from corpsmembers was not ideal

mission orientation supportive colleagues inclusive workforce

hybrid workplace team distributed nationally

Working with very cute children

Bullying and workplace harassment. Management fosters toxic workplace culture.

Kids and coworkers are cool

Management is terrible System is exploiting young people who want to help Pay is not justifiable