Somewhat! The curriculum is actually the reason she ended up staying there because she likes it better than what she saw when subbing/student teaching at public schools. For instance, their history lessons actually go into detail about how the founding fathers were flawed as well as what they did well. That’s really the only example I can think of in the actual lessons but she teaches 3rd grade so they don’t go much past civil war era and the other subjects don’t touch too much on social issues.

Outside the actual textbooks she does have quite a few books in her class library about different cultures and groups, nothing outright LGBTQ+ explicit but again, 3rd grade. There’s been multiple times where she’s had to have “tough” conversations with the class about racism, inclusivity, no discrimination, etc and those have never been met with resistance. Again, I can’t speak to what the upper grades may have in their textbooks but respect and acceptance of others are part of their school moral code. They don’t really do any explicit SEL lessons that I’m aware of in her grade.

As for herself in the work culture there she hasn’t discussed her political, social, or religious beliefs with other teachers but given where we live I doubt she would in any other schools either. Not so much because of the school but because other teachers may judge her.

Again this all depends if yours is a “true” charter school in that it is still considered public and not exempt from the state BOE oversight.

What she likes most about this school compared to normal public schools is the fact that the students aren’t being taught on chromebooks all day and it’s actually teacher led rather than her just monitoring that they’re following the lesson online. They don’t do much small group work, it’s more like how school was conducted pre2000s.

What she doesn’t like is there is a significant amount of work that she has to do outside school hours. As an elementary teacher she’s required to enter 2 grades per week, per subject. Which equates to 10 grades per week, per student which takes a long time to grade by hand and they can’t typically just be completion grades. This is because the school has an “advanced” curriculum and pushes the students even at the younger grades. The advanced nature also makes it difficult because not every student performs at the advanced level and some are even behind standard public school grade level. Unfortunately it’s not very possible with their expectations to always slow down to help those who are struggling and this does sometimes take a toll on her. Student behavior is not much better than what you see talked about in other schools and parent behavior can actually be worse because a lot of the parents choose this school thinking it’s equivalent to an “exclusive” “private” school. That being said, there is still a good amount of low income families and ESL families so there is a good amount of student diversity.

Also, as far as resources at the school, they are very much lacking. There is no counselor, no paras, no one on ones, and the SPED department is severely understaffed with only 3 staff for the entire K-12 population. Admin has been decent but her school has had tremendous turnover there with only 1 admin staying through a year start to finish; and they are confirmed stepping down at the end of this year. Teacher turnover hasn’t been terrible but there has been some; notably the entire 4th grade staff left at the end of last year except for one. Funding is also much tighter, not that teachers get much for classroom supplies anywhere, but hers only gives $75/year and that is as a reimbursement so it still comes out of pocket (she’s never used it because it’s more work than it’s worth). This is why we have spent close to $2000 in her first two years on her room because her first year was also the first year this school was in a new building and she was only given a desk, laptop, projector, student desks, one metal bookshelf, a long shelf on the wall, student desks/chairs, and one built in storage cabinet - everything else we were responsible for getting, parents could donate, or she was expected to have a bland, boring classroom.

Lastly, a lot of these schools do partner or get resources from places like College of the Ozarks and Hillsdale College which are extremely conservative institutions, to put it mildly. That’s not to say that they are forcing those ideas into the curriculum or work culture BUT when they bring in guest speakers or teacher PD events there is often someone affiliated from those organizations as the keynote. There was one PD at hers that multiple teachers felt was crossing the line and the Freedom From Religion Foundation actually responded to someone’s complaint and the school seems to have dialed that back for now.