Complaint Review: Legacy Treatment Services/The Mary Dobbins School

While there are very few of, or next to no teaching jobs in South Jersey I decided to accept a position here. The catch is, they don't tell you it is 'For Profit.' While I have worked in the mental health field for years, at some truly bad places, no one prepared me for this. The principal of the school appears to suffer from Aspergers Syndrome. He thrives on employees being able to punch the time clock. If he sees you having problems he walks away, and/or puts his head down and looks the other way. He will not make eye contact at all. He was hired by the school because he has a law degree. He has no experience teaching nor running a school. He sits in his office 90% of the day. He never bothered to tell me that the students can do one thing only, stare at textbooks.

They cannot play games, watch films, debate, write sentences, much less compose papers, do research, understand 2nd grade grammar, or do anything expected of even a 1st grader. When the students misbehave they are rewarded with prizes by the aids and the Head aid. It is easier to reward a kid that acts out all day. Let's all remember you should always be friends with your students! Don't do anything, not one ounce of work all day, but you slept so you get pizza! You are truly ready to return to your local high school and take the SATs! Most teachers in NJ and any other state receive 45 minutes for planning and 45 minutes for lunch uninterrupted. At this school a teacher receives no break at all. Your free time is filled with staff meetings. You are expected to work for 6.5 hours until you may eat lunch. Most teachers work a 7 hour day but here it is 8. Most teachers get about 10 weeks off or more per summer.

Here, you are expected to teach summer school for the same pay. No, you don't get anything extra. If you are a specialist teacher and you don't teach Computer Science or another speciality, you can be expected to answer phones and empty filing cabinets. You cannot receive personal telephone calls at work or you are written up. The same policy does not exist for teacher aids. They are permitted to talk and play on their phones. The aids have no degrees, not even 2 college credits. The aids walk in late every day and leave the second they can punch out but they are admired because they show up. It's OK that they wear clothes with their stomachs hanging out, or gym clothes. Teachers and administrators must wear dress clothes. Around 80% of the students are developmentally disabled. These students who are DD are violent, obnoxious, arguementative, and consistently run away.

I was attacked and administration refused to do anything about it, claiming the 18 year old had made so much progress that they couldn't discipline her. She came extremely close to breaking my neck. An extremely well educated classroom assistant was spit upon by a 17 year old. The assistant did nothing wrong and handled the situation with complete professionalism. He was fired because the school was afraid they would lose the $150k per year to educate this child. Perhaps I should have known better. Every time I glanced at the want ads there was an ad out for this school. There are at least 5-6 positions always open because no one in NJ has the certification to teach Special Education high school classes. The school then picks the weakest teachers and aids for the easiest classes. Males, and those with a significant amount of teaching experience are given the worst classes. No one bothered to tell me that there are sexual offenders in the school. For females, whether that be students, or staff, being left alone with a sexual offender can be very dangerous. No one working at the school is happy.

The school secretary is burnt out and extremely short tempered. The principal is not admired nor acknowledged by any employee, everyone despises him, the vice principal is burnt out and fed up, sticking around because she has no where else to go. Everything is blamed on the teachers. Most of the teachers stay because they are not willing to commute to a public school 25 miles away. You can expect to teach 4 grade levels at a time because it looks good. Any other public or private school would never allow the mixture of 4 grade levels. To sum it up, teachers write fictional lessons because they cannot teach a 3rd grade level student mixed in with an above average 11th grader. Quite frankly, it is a 'Holding Tank' for the state of New Jersey. These students become dumbed down, incredibly obnoxious, threatening, sexually promiscuous, and immensely violent. They wreck their classrooms, and everything else. There is no discipline policy.

Unless it is something violent or a student runs away, everything is truly ignored. Why does it go on? For about $150k or more a year these children are warehoused. If you multiply that times 180 kids, that is quite a bit of money. When you ask if there is a budget or how much it takes to educate each student you are told that is $75,000 a year , which is a lie. The students are not provided with an education. The goal is to house them as long as possible and when the state funds dry up they let them go. About 80% of the students who attended here have ended up in prison. There are a handful of kids who do not belong at this facility but they get no assistance, they get worse. This is a daycare facility for violent kids. If you are considering a job here as a teacber, aid, social worker, or therapist, please go elsewhere! I imagine there will be a response to this write up. What I can say is this, "When someone takes an incredibly long time to write a review, it is usually to forewarn others that a facility is pretty bad." There can be no response that can justify the actions of this facility. It is a disgrace to society.