Jay Pritzker Academy - Review from July 2016

[SiamMom]

I really want to write a positive review about this school, but I simply can't write about the positives without writing about the issues that face this school. There is so much potential here, but it is sadly wasted.

The school has a lot of money and the campus is beautiful. You'll have all the resources you could possibly want. Money is not a problem here.

The problem is that the place is run very poorly. The students are forced to study eight hours a day, six days a week. It's simply not reasonable to expect them to work that hard. While the children do their best to be well behaved and respectful, it's obvious that they are constantly tired and burned out.

The same can be said for the staff. After a minimum 45-minute commute that can be twice that long in bad weather, and a long school day, nobody has any energy for focusing on teaching. This is really hampered by an insane about of paperwork you are forced to fill out every day and the involved lesson plans you have to submit for approval.

And here lies the heart of the problem. The administrators micromanage everything. And they allow nearly no personal freedom in teaching methods. They are very rude to the teachers and the students alike. It honestly feels like being in a jail. For Cambodia, the money is great.  They do pay well and the facilities are beautiful.  Administrators are good for many reasons but when they don’t know what they are doing, they tend to cause more problems than they solve. That is the case at JPA.

Many teachers left at the end of the year, and I'm told that par for the course. It's a shame because this could be a great school, but the administration ruins it. Once this administrative team is gone and they hire a fresh group of people to run the school, I see great potential for the school.