North Star Academy West Side Park Campus

I wish in the 90's we had school like these. Great and awesome teacher staff and crew.

i cant speak on the perspective of a teacher but as a parent I can honestly say that I LOVE this school. YES they are STRICT and give a good amount of work but kids need that! If they are accustomed to it from a young age it becomes a norm. His teachers are also very caring and my son tells me he just loves his teachers both last year and this year ( 1st grade) my son is learning so much and is surprising me each day with how much he has learned. North Star is one of my main reasons for staying in Newark. My son and all other children deserve the best! North Star pushes my son to do more and he is doing GREAT! He passed his math assessment with an 100%!! They put a focus on college from the beginning and that's such a plus for me because sooo many kids in the area graduate high school (If that) and think I'm done ! NOOO that's just the BEGINNING!! My son can name more universities than I can! So thank you to North Star and I look forward to the new school opening :))

basically, this school is ass, that is the jist of it.

Ive gone to this school for 3 years and it has been amazin the teachers actually care

Dont be fooled by these post. Mind you they are coming from upper management to make this organization supreame and delightful to work for. Smoke and Mirrors! As with all charter schools, you will be waiting for Superman for a very long time. They all work hand in hand like a corrupt goverment. Now to expose the truth of this organization:
Exposing the truth behind the whole TFA/charter school charade, is very much a charade, an elaborate, expensive smoke & mirrors. Uncommon Schools are one of the worst offenders of creating and sustaining the myth that teachers can solve everything. Waiting for Superman infuriated me because just like Uncommon Schools – it sent the message that good teachers should be martyrs, not people with lives and passions of their own that happen to also be talented and passionate about educating children. I am not a martyr, and as I titled my op-ed, I am also not superman.

The administration bullies their teachers and are ineffective other than giving you constant feedback. They want you to always feel like your working on something. That way this mental game will have you feeling like you are an ineffective teacher to the point of being completely irrational of believing your own stregnths. Everyone, including the principal and the deans, are so stressed out that there are often medical problems, and forbid you ask to go the doctor, you may be asked to teach a Literacy block, why your spleen is falling out of your body. I used to leave the same time as my other TFA co-teacher and best friend at the school, and we would often cry on our way out of work.

The working conditions at the school are plainly unreasonable. They treat the students like dogs in a circus. They take a very military, curt, and physical approach. When the principals lock their doors with a student, who knows whats going on. They take advantage of young, idealistic, competent teachers; they squeeze and squeeze until there was nothing left to give, even your dignity. They put on a "dog- and -pony" show for their visitors, but if people actually knew what they do to the children to make them so "uniform" and smart. You have some leaders who go through their "civil-rights" speach and act like this is what they do, and this is their "mission" blah, blah, blah... the only mission they are concerned about is getting to the top and getting accolade to validate what ever ridiculous insecurity they have to feel important. They are all about data... and dollars.

By no means is this to downplay this organization, but people need to know the truth about these charter schools and their lies. Uncommons and their little "schools" take advantage of budding teachers, often crushing their spirits in the process. If one thing Uncommon is good at is numbers, and working the numbers. From the moment you walk in your treated like your dispensible even if yout TFA. They will constantly remind you that it's a difficult task, and few can do it. When in actuality, your number, and they are on to the next.
No school with a 60% teacher turnover rate should be praised in the press as the model for other schools to follow. Now that I’ve taught in a relatively stable independent school for four years, I see that a school’s real success comes from its sense of community. When teachers are leaving left and right because they’re being asked to perform superhuman feats for little compensation, the idea of “community” essentially vanishes.

There is no mission alignment. Just politics, desensitization, greed, and decit. It sure is Uncommon alright.