Pros
I loved (and now miss) the work environment and culture in the office. There was a work hard-play hard mentality, a flexible work schedule, and a collaborative group of colleagues who were more than willing to help each other with challenges. The management team was accessible and I thought very easy to speak to. I think there are opportunities for career advancement and ways to carve out projects and specialize in areas one desires. I also enjoyed working with other departments within the company - payroll/accounting/data/admin/mgmt - good people in each department, and supporting schools well takes the entire team, which I believe is there. Salary/benefits/etc. were pretty good, while salary reviews & bonuses were done annually and I believe in a good/fair manner. Working directly with schools was very rewarding - collaborating with directors to align their budgets strategically was a process I usually enjoyed (more on this topic soon). I was fortunate to support some schools which were definitely providing learning opportunities and succeeding with students in neighborhoods which unfortunately hadn't had enough success with students in the past. It's fun and challenging (in a good way) to help successful schools grow so that they can provide more students with an outstanding quality education.
Cons
The most rewarding and unfortunately frustrating part of my job was working directly with schools. As a client manager, I had the ability to work with site leaders on their strategies, budgets, etc. Some of those schools end up being excellent partners, while others can be very disheartening to work with. There's a higher level of stress with schools which have significant cash problems and make decisions which really put their school in jeopardy. I guess the plus side here is that those difficult schools provided a good learning experience. Some of the reporting wasn't the best use of brainpower, but you're probably going to have a few tasks in any job which you're not excited about, so it is what it is...