Weddingbee boards

My sister was in TFA and assigned to Miami.  It was a horrendous situation, TFA did nothing to help her, she was in mortal danger on a daily basis, and then TFA fired all its Miami teachers because "real" Miami teachers wanted jobs.  I would not recommend the program.

Las Vegas Valley alum 06 right here! What's up Mrs. Lemon!

@eholden, I overall have somewhat mixed, but generally positive, feelings about TFA. PM me if you want to talk or ask tips on the application process. I experienced nothing like the really bad stuff some other girls did.

I agree with spaniel - they have worked hard at becoming an "elite" program and want future policymakers and leaders - and in my personal experience, it seemed like they accepted a lot of people who were not necessarily interested in working with students or teaching but wanted to use TFA to segue into other careers. I applied and was rejected along with many people I know who are passionate about education and working with underserved youth... at the time, I was really disappointed, but looking back, I'm actually happy they knew I wasn't right for it!

One of my college roommates did TFA for two years in D.C., arguably the nation's worst school district, and she decided to stay on as a teacher when she was done, although not at the same school.  From her perspective, TFA wasn't very supportive of corps members who wanted to continue as teachers, and morale was low among her TFA co-workers.  But, I realize that is only one person's perspective.

I think the program is trying to do good work, but I don't necessarily agree with how they're going about that work.

My sister was promised a full-time placement.  Then after she moved there for this position, they said she may only get a substitute teaching placement with no benefits.  She did end up getting placed full-time about a week before school started.  She moved her entire life across country for this and had truly excelled at the summer institute in Atlanta that summer.  Her experience, as I mentioned before, was truly horrendous.  She left after a couple of months because TFA was making her plan a year-long curriculum and her school was making her plan a separate one, so she had to do two entire, year-long plans!  TFA wouldn't budge on this even though she was working so hard she was barely getting any time to sleep.  Also, the students were beyond difficult: stabbing other students with sharpened rulers, throwing their desks out into the hall, etc.  She had to teach with a locked classroom door for safety, couldn't have a computer at school and there were cockroaches covering the restroom to the point where she held it all day long.  My sister was given no support by TFA or any other teachers at the school to learn how to handle these types of situations.  She was actually openly hated by the other, non-TFA teachers at the school and was told by the janitor not to arrive too early in the morning lest she get shot and he have to clean up her blood.  She cried and cried every night, repeatedly reached out to TFA and got ZERO support and finally made the agonizing decision to leave.  Don't get it wrong, she WANTED to stay!  She didn't want to abandon her kids and really believed in the TFA message at first.  She's not some wimpy girl, she is a 6' tall, hard as nails, ridiculously smart, ambitious, top women's college educated person who has come out on top of MANY difficult situations.  The fact that someone might think she "couldn't handle it" is so far from the truth.  Shortly after she left, the rest of the TFA teachers at her school were fired and left out in the cold.  TFA did nothing to help them find work after moving their lives to Miami.  As you can tell, I have a complete bias against the program after what my sister endured, that being said, I know some people have had relatively good experiences.  My advice if you do it: develop an incredibly thick skin and don't choose Miami!

@Eholden, I think one of the things to remember as well is that no matter what TFA tells you, not all placements are equal. Every placement region absolutely has its challenges, and you WILL be in a school with a whole host of things working against you, but some places are unequivocally worse than others. For example, people I knew from Institute who were teaching in LA had horror stories that would never, in my worst nightmare, take place at my school in Las Vegas.

eryepye and courteousgal - I'm so sorry your sister/you had to go through that with TFA. Just wanted to say, courteousgal - there are counseling centers, drop-in and otherwise, that work on a sliding scale and it doesn't matter if you have health insurance. Don't let lack of health insurance hold you back from at least looking into it.