Pros
You get paid every two weeks
Cons
The School itself is a branch of the Legionaries of Christ and Regnum Christi. It is a ultra conservative mental health school that’s practices are not all APA approved in all 50 states because of its controversial history and curriculum. It was founded in Mexico by a priest who had a seriously disturbing past with women and children. This organization also help groups to assist people with leaving it. I had no idea of any of this since they brought the Diocese of Arlington to the opening of the school. I knew they were conservative, about half of Catholics are but I did not know that they were borderline fundamentalist. They actually support forced celibacy for the LGBTQ community its called “courage” and “Encourage”. At the time I left they had started admitting white nationalists from Europe that were prominent outside of the US. As far as the work goes, it is your standard non-profit mantra. The people you will work with however, you need to have the ability to brush it off. You will either hear old propaganda about how we need to try and “steer the protestants back to us” or something against different political parties… and this will happen if you so much as try to go make a cup a coffee. It is an extremely conservative environment, politically and religiously. They only hire a handful of non-conservative Catholics to look inclusive. If you are liberal or even a moderate, I would strongly advise not disclosing that. If you have friends or family that are LGBTQ, mixed race, or in a multicultural relationship I would strongly advise not disclosing that. This order was started in Mexico but most of the staff is not friendly to these communities. Aside from the politics, this is not a place for women to work in any capacity. I was followed into an elevator and harassed, intimidated from applying for higher positions and was not allowed to use my vacation time. I only got one day off for my wedding and was screamed at when I tried to take a week off to plan it. I had a miscarriage earlier this year and needed time off to go through the process and my boss questioned me with some extremely inappropriate questions and only would allow me to take two days off because “she did not have time for this” and “she would get pushback from the admissions department”. For a school that literally does the March for Life every year, they treated me like I had a disease and the amount of physical damage from miscarrying at the end of the first trimester was severe and took months of physical and mental recovery. I got extremely sick because I was not able to take the needed to time to recover and was forced to work through it. If you work there, you will never get time off, it’s a limited staff, no one will help anyone, you have no support and if you have an event that you will have to travel to or have something come up like a funeral, you will only get two days maximum and if you try to take a week off they will call you until you pick up. You will have no personal space, there is no work life balance and majority of the staff refuses to get vaccinated against Covid-19 and remote work is limited. Your boss will call you on the weekend until you pick up the phone. Most of the staff is frustrated because of this including the directors so you are at the mercy of their mood for that day. You never know when you might get an angry call over something someone else said or did an HR no longer responds to complaints of harassment even if you can send them direct emails from the person harassing you. The staff also spoke to me as if I had a disability or could not understand English, I have been called slow, stupid, pathetic. When they started admitting far right nationalists who are known oversees to this school and I had concerns being a mixed-race woman in a multiracial marriage they literally took days to respond back to me and did not do it directly. They had my supervisor contact me and tell those views to not go against the mission of the school and that if I questioned it again, I needed to look for another job. Two days later one of the admissions representatives verbally assaulted me and I quit. All of these incidents and others were reported to HR who did not respond. The only time they responded was when I put in my two weeks. They asked me to drop off my things earlier since the new semester was about to start. I originally stated I would stay the two weeks so I could have my PTO paid out. They then refused to pay it out and I appealed to the board of directors. I was never called, never contacted and while the Diocese of Arlington victim services contacted me to apologize but there was no formal conversation about the abuse I encountered. I also presented emails and written documentation from these individuals presenting Divine Mercy University sent a letter to a residence I haven’t lived at in over a year with an NDA attached stating that they would pay out my PTO if I signed it. The NDA also disclosed that if I signed it and accepted my PTO (which should have been paid out with my last paycheck) that the school reserves the right to change the terms of when I worked there. If I had signed it, they were planning to turn my employment status from resigned to mutual termination. I was offered a job shortly after quitting but my former supervisor refused to call back to confirm my references. Myself and at least one other person I know of have had job complications after working here and some employees I know of that have worked here has had to seek counseling for trauma response…This place is literally a mental health school, and no one will go near the therapists. The only reason I stayed in this position for as long as I did was because it was during Covid lockdown and there were not many opportunities at the time. Once the job market started to open, I left. The organization hides under the diocese blanket to get away from the controversy it has created in Mexico and little schools in the states, but it has a pattern of abuse towards women and minors. If you are a woman, have small children or are a person of color I would not apply.
