Week 2: Frustrations with Leadership at BOPN

While many interns at the Boston Outdoor Preschool Network (BOPN) only work part of the day, I work a full day. I sit and have lunch with my lead teachers every day, and participating in their conversations gives me insights into working at BOPN full-time and with more responsibilities than I have as an intern. What I have gained from these conversations is that many of the lead teachers are frustrated with BOPN’s leadership. One of my lead teachers, who works at the BOPN’s Wellesley location, said that a third of the teachers in Wellesley quit before the end of the school year. My other lead teacher’s co-teacher during the school year also quit and they know others that are planning to quit. The impression I get is that if there were other opportunities to do this work in the area my lead teachers would look elsewhere, but because outdoor preschools are not the norm they are staying at BOPN, for now.

Some of their primary concerns seem to follow a common vein: the teachers feel that their opinions aren’t listened to by BOPN’s executive director and co-founders. Many of BOPN’s teachers are young, while the executive directors seem closer to middle-aged and have significant others. The founders don’t seem to look at the challenges of a non-profit start-up from the same perspective as the teachers. For example, when it came to the question of health insurance for full-time teachers, one of the founders responded to concerns by presenting the price of the lowest cost insurance and said this should be affordable for you. The lead teacher I heard this from commented, “she knows my salary, so she should know that’s not affordable.” The founders are all on their significant other’s health insurance and thus don’t have to worry about it as younger teachers do. While the founders do survey teachers, looking for feedback it sounds like the surveys often aren’t anonymous and aren’t listened to. Additionally, it sounds like teachers are pushed into shifting their focus toward work that they did not initially sign up for, which results in some leaving. Finally, the founders continue to try expanding their programing offerings before the teachers feel they are ready. The teachers seem to think that there is still a lot of work to be done to strengthen the current programs. Stretching the organization’s resources thinner and thinner will not help solidify existing programs, but instead, have the potential to weaken everything. While there are growing pains when starting any organization, it seems that the teachers believe these growing pains might be prevented if their voices were listened to.