Working at FLS International — Reviews by Employees

The worst place one could ever work if you want to maintain any semblance of sanity, personal life, self-respect, health.

This company remains in business because of the dedicated staff and teachers. FLS uses their idealism to maximize their bottom line and treats everyone involved, employees, students, home stay families, business partners equally shoddy. They repay employee loyalty by replacing them as if they were a roll of paper towels that just ran out. The director of the Mira Costa campus (who fortunately moved on to a much better job) was terrific and other staff were fine, also. But if a situation developed that required the backing of Pasadena staff, the VP invariably dropped the ball, struck out, was a no-show...however one would put it. FLS succeeds despite its upper management. The farther one works from the home office, the better the company looks. I'd rather deliver pizzas.

High turnover, confrontational environment encouraged. No raises, promised bonus' never fulfilled. Long hours expected with taking work home all night and over the weekends without any acknowledgement of efforts. Lights kept off and heat turned off even during cold weather. Best is to just stay away from this company.

I worked at the Las Vegas FLS for quite some time, and the problems there all stem from upper management, which is why I had trouble giving a really bad rating for "Coworker Competence"-- the people with whom I worked at our center were, with a few, glaring exceptions, fantastic. The teachers work very hard, and do a lot of work on their own time (i.e. for which they are not paid), to make their classes great, in spite of how poorly they are treated, and paid, by upper management. The management staff at our center, over the last several years, have been up and down. Some people were ethical and quite competent, and worked very hard on behalf of the school and its employees. Others, unfortunately, were not any of those things, though in their defense, I believe they were promoted into their positions based on someone's opinions of how malleable they would be, and how much they would capitulate when asked to do things that may not be fair or reasonable. As for the other categories: Pay-- the pay is low, not even including how much work one is expected to do on one's own time, and the "Annual" Performance and Compensation reviews that are promised in the Employee Handbook are never, ever, done on time, if ever. I know for a fact that they are often completed by the immediate supervisor on time and submitted to upper management, who then ignores the requests for a pay increase, or worse, sometimes outright (and rudely) refuses to give requested increases, for reasons that are not given or make no sense. The VP of Operations was recently made President, and since he seems to be the main cause of all of the poor treatment of employees, it only promises to get worse (he is dishonest, condescending, and rude, and those are the nicest things I can think to say about him.) Respect? Again, from upper management, it is nonexistent. Benefits? For all employees except management, there are none (oh, sorry, 1 week of paid vacation after FOUR YEARS of teaching there-- needless to say, very few people stay that long); for the few who do get benefits, they're horrible. Job Security? Teachers are employed on FOUR-WEEK contracts, so there is no job security either. Some have been let go with no warning and for no reason, except that there were fewer classes open that term. Work/Life Balance? You are expected to do a lot of work on your own time, including ALL class planning, and mandatory written progress reports that must be done for each student every four weeks (and which are very time-consuming). Career Potential/Growth-- I still had to give the lowest score, because the chances for moving up are so slim as to be realistically non-existent, and when the rare chance does come up, often the person who is promoted is not the most qualified, and sometimes not at all qualified, and also often hired from outside anyway. Location-- in Vegas, the school is in a questionable neighborhood-- our former admin assistant witnessed drug deals go down on the property (outside in the parking lot, and not involving anyone associated with the school) on more than one occasion, and there were other incidents as well. Work Environment? Well, I had to split the difference a bit here-- for a good bit of my time there, most (sometimes all) of the teachers at the school were fantastic and a joy to work with, and that was also true of the staff at some times. At other times, the management at the school was so-so or terrible. And, once again, upper management was consistently horrific. Many people that we had to talk to in the corporate office were downright mean on the phone (my coworker was actually screamed at on occasion, and she was the best school management that school had seen in a very long time). Paychecks were routinely screwed up. Host families never got paid on time, and often called and yelled at anyone unlucky enough to answer the phone (their checks come from the corporate offices in California). Students (i.e. the clients) were also treated badly on occasion, particularly when it came to their tuition (refunds due to departing students were often delayed or denied, in violation of FLS' own refund policies). I could tell many more horror stories of my own and others' mistreatment, but I will leave it here. If you ever have the chance to work for FLS, BEWARE, you could end up regretting it. And given the recent change at the top, it only promises to get worse.

I completely agree with both posts below. I have no idea how this school stays in business. Yes, I can affirm that this company pays people late all of the time.

In theory, FLS is a program that introduces international students to life and education in America. In reality it is an international summer camp masquerading as a school.

I was hired by an FLS Director that acted like he took too much Prozac. He told me that teaching at FLS would be a fun experience. Either he was being deceitful or naive because he was dead wrong. I couldn’t hold him accountable because within a month, he was fired. They replaced him with a cocky, but equally clueless guy. Who knows how long that guy will last, or if he is even still there. I was there less than 4 months and saw this, so it seems to be true that they “grind directors to dust, fire them and start over again."

My first class had 10 students in a very small classroom, like 6 feet by 18 feet. I’m pretty tolerant, so I made it work. After a month, my class had ballooned to 20 people with ages ranging from 12 to 40 crammed into this tiny room. I felt like a zookeeper instead of a teacher. I have no idea how they could put children and middle aged people in the same class.

Some teachers had to teach outside because there were no classrooms. I would see tons of out of control international kids running around the school. Since FLS is on an adult college campus, it was pretty embarrassing to be associated with FLS and some of its students.

My adult students complained about taking class with children. All I could do was listen and apologize. I agreed with them, some of the kids were not well behaved, rich and spoiled. The director didn’t care or was too busy to care. Usually, I love to teach, but some days I really dreaded coming to work.

The office staff was terribly overworked. I would see them come in at 7:00 am and sometimes I found them still working at 9:00 pm!! All of the office staff is on salary too!! They were so tired and overworked that they would often forget to do simple things like give my students textbooks or have enough textbooks on inventory.

Everyday was a surprise, I was never told ahead of time, who, when and how many students would be in my class. Usually, I would have new students enter my class 2-3 times a week. I had never seen such a chaotic school environment in my life.

For how little FLS pays, they charge the students a lot of money. I don’t know where all of the extra money goes.

Now, I teach at another language school and I am 1000% happier. If you search this site, you will find my review of them as well. You will see that I am not a picky and disgruntled person. I am positive and love teaching. I just need the bare minimum tools to have a good working experience. For example; paper, a working copy machine, a roll sheet. I don't think it is too much to ask for.

In short, I thought teaching at FLS would be similar to my experience teaching overseas, but it was very different. I have taught English in the third world!! I kid you not, the conditions of my school in the third world was much better than at FLS.

Finally, I have to rant about the lack of benefits for teachers. No medical, no dental, no NOTHING. I would be eligible for one week vacation after 3 YEARS of continuous employment??!! From what I hear about that head office, they are a bunch of slave drivers. Also, it appears that the Lumberg character is still running operations,,,,,ummmmmm. yeah.

Stay away from this “school”, there are a lot of legitimate schools out there, just do some research. These guys have a mockery out of education and will probably be out of business before you can say, where is my paycheck?

they treat use like dogs but they want respect,dirty and underhanded. Management takes care of each other and knowone else. there scum

I agree with person who posted above. The program is wonderful. The vast majority of the students are great and grateful. However, the management from California is horrid. I have seen 5 directors leave over the past 2 years. Employees are treated like garbage. I have seen management hire people at "very low wages, grind them to dust, fire them and start over again." This is SO TRUE. Beware of the "Temporary Full-Time" positions. “Temporary Full-Time” really means that you work over 40 hours a week for a meager weekly salary with no benefits. Once the students return to their home countries, your hours disappear. I would like to add that management also treats their business partners poorly. The company has this habit of using other business's services without paying for those services until 6 months after the fact. The mean spirited VP of operations is no longer with the company. She has been replaced by a man that resembles the Lumberger character from Office Space. Sneaky, underhanded, unethical and dishonest. Watch out. “They let qualified loyal people slip through their fingers and spend their days sending ridiculous emails back and forth. They abuse and disrespect the teachers that work there and actually use people who are not qualified to teach as teachers. The host families that open their homes to the students are treated like garbage, not paid and basically used until the company finds someone to replace them. I do not know of 1 employee who is treated with respect and the company does absolutely nothing to foster any loyalty but demands loyalty from everyone.” – I agree with this assessment 100%. It's just shameful that a wonderful program with so much potential is married to such terrible management.