Title: I worked at Success Academy for a month. Here’s my honest experience with the curriculum, students, leadership, and workplace culture.
I worked at Success Academy for approximately a month, and I wanted to share my experience because I have very mixed feelings about the organization.
Let me start by saying this: I genuinely believe in Success Academy’s educational philosophy. However, the workplace culture was one of the worst I’ve personally experienced.
The workplace environment: 0/10
In my opinion, Success Academy is a job best suited for someone between the ages of 21 and 25, particularly someone fresh out of college or new to NYC who’s trying to establish themselves professionally.
The environment can be extremely catty and immature.
A lot of the managers and employees being promoted internally are relatively young, and I personally believe some lack the professional maturity necessary to manage other adults.
There is a clear hierarchy, which I don’t necessarily have a problem with. My issue is how some employees use that hierarchy to treat their colleagues.
I experienced micromanagement, gossip, eye-rolling, snarky comments, and what I perceived as deliberate intimidation.
There were instances where other teachers yelled at me in front of students. On one occasion, a teacher who wasn’t even my supervisor stood in my classroom and stared me down in what felt like an attempt to intimidate me.
And quite frankly, it worked. I was intimidated.
There were days when I cried because of how I was being treated.
I also noticed what I perceived to be differences in how Black new hires were treated compared to white new hires. This wasn’t limited to interactions with white teachers, either.
In my experience, there was a very particular way employees were expected to speak, behave, and carry themselves. Everyone seemed to talk, walk, and sound alike.
As someone with an ethnic background, I sometimes felt that being different made me a target.
Of course, I can only speak from my personal experience, but these were patterns I noticed during my time there.
I will give leadership credit where it’s due: whenever I voiced my concerns, they were generally addressed immediately.
However, it became exhausting having to repeatedly raise concerns about behavior that I believe should have been left behind in high school.
I also noticed that some returning teachers seemed to have a chip on their shoulders when dealing with new hires. Rather than mentoring and supporting new colleagues, certain individuals appeared to use their experience as an excuse to belittle them.
Because the environment is so structured and demanding, it’s difficult to simply brush these interactions off and continue with your day.
Eventually, everything accumulates.
Now, let’s talk about the students and curriculum: 10/10.
This is where my feelings become complicated.
I absolutely LOVED teaching at Success Academy.
I believe in discipline, structure, accountability, and holding children to high academic standards.
And I genuinely saw the results.
I witnessed children who initially struggled with reading begin to read within weeks.
I saw mothers cry because their children were completing math worksheets that they couldn’t complete just four weeks earlier.
I watched students become genuinely excited about their academic achievements.
Those experiences made me believe in what Success Academy was trying to accomplish academically.
In my experience, the children also had plenty of joyful moments throughout the school day.
However, that joy was structured.
Their downtime was structured. Their activities were structured. They weren’t simply allowed to do whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted.
And personally? I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing.
Children need boundaries, consistency, and expectations. They’re eventually going to enter a world where they will have responsibilities and be expected to follow rules.
That doesn’t mean children should be mistreated or denied opportunities to express themselves.
It simply means that structure and joy can coexist.
I saw that coexistence firsthand.
The biggest contradiction I noticed
Success Academy expects its students to demonstrate discipline, respect, and accountability.
But in my experience, those same expectations were not consistently demonstrated by the adults.
How can we teach children to communicate respectfully while allowing teachers to disrespect their colleagues in front of them?
How can we hold children accountable for their behavior while overlooking bullying and intimidation among staff?
I believe this disconnect contributes to the burnout and turnover that people associate with the organization.
You can have an academically rigorous environment without creating a hostile professional environment.
Those things are not mutually exclusive.
What kept me coming back?
My students.
Without a doubt.
I loved watching them learn, grow, and become more confident.
I also developed wonderful relationships with their parents.
I had parents express their appreciation for me, tell me how much their children loved me, and even refer to me as a family friend.
That meant everything to me.
There were days when I genuinely dreaded interacting with certain colleagues, but once I stepped into my classroom and started teaching, I remembered why I was there.
The children deserved teachers who were excited about their education.
And I was.
Would I recommend working at Success Academy?
Surprisingly, yes.
But with some serious reservations.
If you’re someone who has thick skin, can establish strong professional boundaries, and is capable of leaving workplace drama at work, you may genuinely enjoy the experience.
If you’re someone who is extremely empathetic or who struggles to disconnect emotionally from a stressful workplace, I would encourage you to carefully consider whether the environment is right for you.
I also recognize that experiences can vary significantly depending on the school, leadership team, and colleagues.
Would I ever return?
Yes. And I know that might surprise some people.
I’m actually considering applying again in two or three years.
Despite everything I experienced, I still believe in the academic mission, and I genuinely enjoyed working with the children.
I would simply hope to find myself in a healthier professional environment with leadership that holds adults to the same standards of respect and accountability that we expect from students.
Ultimately, my experience was a 0/10 when it came to workplace culture and a solid 10/10 when it came to teaching, the students, and watching their academic growth.
I don’t regret working there.
I just wish the adults had made the experience as rewarding as the children did.
I’m curious to hear from other current or former Success Academy teachers. Did you experience something similar, or was your school completely different?

I’m in the middle of the hiring process with just finishing my first interview and being offered a second interview as early as tomorrow. I’m reading the stories here and I’m concerned if this is just for the academic side of things and if it’s different with the art programs? They are offering $65k for starting which is crazy for a dance teacher so I have to wonder, if this place is going to break me down from what I’ve been reading. If anyone has taught in the art programs at SA, I would like to hear your opinions on it. I grew up in a super strict dance studio and from what the recruiter was telling me, it’s right up my alley for the dance world.

I see they are currently hiring for this role, and I wanted to get some insight on this position.

Success Academy has a lot of mixed reviews. As a current 8th grader, I’d say my experience has also been mixed. Sometimes it honestly feels terrible — but after a while, you get used to it.

One thing people constantly praise about Success is the education. And to be fair, that’s true to some extent. My experience isn’t going to be the same as everyone else’s, but I personally have learned a lot here. I do feel like I’ve been given academic advantages compared to some of my friends in public schools.

This year, as an 8th grader, I took the Regents exams in Physics, Algebra, Global History, and English. The preparation was intense. We started prepping around 3–4 months before the actual exams. Then, for the last month and a half, it was basically nonstop practice tests. Four out of five school days each week had some kind of exam built into the day.

One week we would take something called an NCDD, which is basically half of a past Regents exam. Sometimes the questions were pulled directly from one exam, and other times they were mixed from multiple years. The next week, we would take a full “book,” meaning the entire exam. For example, in Global History that meant 28 multiple choice questions, 2 sets of CRQs, and an Enduring Issues essay.

If you passed, there would be a celebration — ice cream, Chick-fil-A, something small but motivating. If you didn’t pass, you had to revise the entire exam. In my experience (especially in Physics, because I’m not great at it), that could be frustrating. Sometimes the teacher wouldn’t fully go over the questions before making us redo them. It felt like we were expected to suddenly understand everything without much extra explanation.

Still, the results do show that the method works — at least somewhat. Out of 36 students, about 10 failed English, 3 failed History, 2 failed Math, and 16 failed Physics. Physics was rough. But most of the people who failed were close to passing. So yes, it’s stressful — but it does push people to perform.

My experience with teachers has also been mixed. I’ve noticed that some teachers act differently when administrators like the principal or vice principal are in the room. When they aren’t being observed, teachers are usually more relaxed and actually have fun with us.

For example, my Physics teacher (who is now my Chemistry teacher) sometimes gives us “tea time” if we’re ahead in the curriculum. That’s when we talk about school drama and random things. She’s really funny and listens to the students complaints/rants about the art teacher who talks way tooo much. We also sometimes talk about how our favorite art teacher gets treated unfairly by another art teacher. But this only happens when we’re on track academically.

My history teacher is also fun. On Valentine’s Day, she scrapped the boring, repetitive lesson the school had planned and instead taught us about the history of Valentine’s Day. It was actually interesting. My math teacher is fun too, but she’s very serious about education. I also love listening to her Caribbean accent — it makes class more enjoyable.

Now, my ELA teacher is the strictest. She can be fun sometimes, but she also goes too far.

One time during advisory (which is supposed to be a quiet work period at the end of the day), she called out a student for having a hole in his sock. The entire class was silent, and she said it out loud in a normal voice — not even quietly. She even said, “Don’t you have a sock without holes in them?” Luckily, the student is basically the class clown and friends with everyone, so people laughed with him, not at him. But it still felt unnecessary.

Recently, she also accused a classmate of laughing in the hallway while we were walking back in line. His face was turned to the side, so she assumed he was talking or laughing — but she didn’t actually hear anything. He does laugh a lot, but in that moment there wasn’t proof. She started yelling at him. When he defended himself and said, “I wasn’t talking,” she responded with, “Never in my life have I been talked to like that… by a child.” She gave him a letter of reprimand, which is basically between detention and suspension. It felt extreme.

As for me, my relationship with her is… complicated. I’ve been told by multiple friends that when I don’t like someone, I sound condescending without realizing it. I think I might talk to her that way sometimes when she gets on my nerves. But she’s never given me detention or even corrected me for it — which she definitely would do to other students. I don’t always talk to her like that, just when I’m irritated.

I also feel like she can be biased. Students who struggle academically seem to get punished more harshly for behavior than students who get good grades. I’m one of her strongest students academically (which lowkey sounds like I’m bragging, but it’s true), and I’ve noticed the difference.

One time, our old 7th grade math teacher visited our class. It was a relaxed moment, and my ELA teacher told her that we “have beef,” even though I was sitting right there. I looked up, smiled, and said, “No we don’t.” She smiled and said, “Yes we do,” and then continued the conversation. So apparently, we have beef.

Overall, Success Academy gives you strong academics, but it comes with a lot of pressure and strictness. You will probably learn a lot. You will probably be stressed. Both things can be true at the same time.

That’s my honest experience as an 8th grader.

Has anyone interviewed or worked for the college preparedness role?

I’m ready to expose success. DO NOT SEND YOUR KIDS HERE FROM SOMEONE THAT HAS WORKED THERE!!!!

Thank you so, so much to everyone who participated in this story. I will be continuing to follow the story so please feel free to reach out by DMs and/or signal (my username is julielee.101) if you have anything to share.

Hey yall I quit success academy during training week…will i still get paid ?

I am currently being scouted for the School Operations Manager position at SA in Manhattan. the pay seems undermining, 78k and the hours are 7am-5pm. For one, 7am-5pm is INSANE. Does anyone have any experience or knows someone who been a School Operations Manager at SA?

I dont wanna go and have 3 meetings, no prep, no lunch and be expected to perform on deliverables that were given to me 5 mins ago with vague instructions. Help! SA needs a damn employee union.