YES Prep Public Schools, a member charter school system in Houston, Texas, recently was named one of the 10 Best Places to Work in Houston by the Houston Business Journal!  No school has ever made the list.  YES Prep shares their view of this accomplishment below: 

My name is Ryan Dolibois and, as the Chief Development Officer of YES Prep, I am excited to have an opportunity to contribute to this blog. TCSA is doing incredible work and this blog will further help charter schools collaborate and communicate across Texas.

For those of you who don’t know YES Prep Public Schools, I should first introduce us.  Founded in 1998, YES Prep Public Schools is a Houston-based public charter school system serving over 4,000 low-income students in 6^th-12^th grade on eight area campuses. YES Prep was founded to prove a simple hypothesis: that students from low-income neighborhoods can achieve at the same level as their more affluent peers when given access to the same great opportunities, experiences and resources that exist in great private schools and great suburban public schools.  This video (written, composed, and filmed by YES Prep students and staff) provides the best introduction to who we are and what we do. 

Our goal is to Transform Houston by preparing a critical mass of low-income students for college graduation and creating “proof points” around the city that challenge the status quo in public education. Even though most students enter YES Prep up to two grades behind in math and reading, 100% of our graduating seniors have been accepted to four-year colleges across the country, including Harvard, Stanford, Columbia, Vanderbilt, Rice, University of Texas, and Texas A&M. Even more exciting—over 90% of our students are the first generation in their family to attend a four-year university! In early June, we celebrated as our tenth class of seniors walked across the stage at graduation. This spring, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, honored our seniors’ achievements by serving as the keynote speaker at our annual “Senior Signing Day” ceremony.  We are truly proud of the Class of 2010 and all the work they have done to achieve their dreams of college success!

I am also pleased to report on another recent accomplishment. The Houston Business Journal just named YES Prep one of Houston’s Best Places to Work in their annual publication. We are the first public school system to ever earn this recognition and the only nonprofit (outside of the medical field) to make the list.  The ranking is based on an independent survey conducted and analyzed by the Houston Business Journal. To make the list, a large percentage of staff have to answer questions about team effectiveness, feeling valued, trust in senior leadership, and a host of other quality-defining metrics.

So, a school district is one of the BEST PLACES TO WORK in Houston!?!? At the awards ceremony, there were definitely a number of people in the audience that were scratching their heads. We have all grown accustomed to seeing articles in the paper about teacher dissatisfaction with inequity in pay, the long hours, the ungrateful parents and students, and all of the other factors that seemingly make being a teacher so difficult and unappealing.

In contrast, winners of the Best Places to Work survey this year and in the past have included hospitals, law firms, financial institutions, and energy companies.  They win because their employees enjoy company sponsored birthday parties, tricked-out staff lounges, creatively decorated and well-attended holiday parties, and other “perks.” In the words of the Business Journal, these companies are noted for achieving “the often difficult balance of maintaining a stable, productive work environment that is also fun and fulfilling for employees.”

So a school system? What do we possibly have to offer, right? This year we employ roughly 325 staff, and the average age of a YES Prep teacher is 25. Our staff work long hours—our school day runs over 9 hours a day and every teacher is equipped with a school-sponsored cell phone so students and families can reach them even after the school day is over. “Just another day at the office” includes teaching, collaborating, tracking student achievement data, taking students on college visits, tutoring, disciplining, participating in community service, calling parents, and – of course – grading! Despite all of this, over 95% of our staff on our annual survey say that they feel like they are making a difference. As one employee wrote, “I cannot imagine doing anything with my life more meaningful than what I am doing now.  The thing I love most about YES Prep is that we are NEVER satisfied with the status quo.  Not for our students, not for us, not for education, not for Houston.  I love that we are always evaluating and reflecting on everything we do and we are not afraid to cut things that aren’t working and retry things that we should have done better!”

What we’re proving—as are many other charters across the state—is that it’s not just about ping-pong tables in the staff lounge and a large bonus at the end of the year that play a role in job satisfaction. We are all working hard to demonstrate that a school can and should be an awesome place to work. It IS possible to create an incredible work environment, most importantly because our biggest “perk” is not some material reward, but rather the opportunity to impact our students and make a true difference in our communities.

So, three cheers for charter schools! I look forward to the day when the annual Best Places to Work list is filled with more schools and nonprofits who are proving what is possible in public education.

This entry was posted on Friday, August 20th, 2010 at 12:01 pm and is filed under Voices and Victories. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.