Great Students and Coworkers, Poor Leadership and Ethics
Pros
- The students are wonderful and many of the coaches and directors are passionate, caring people. - Activities can be fun such as hiking, paintball, and other things around town. - Some freedoms and creativity with how you do your job in most roles.
Cons
- There was an ever- expanding divide between the executive team and the staff who worked on site with students directly. I saw this regularly lead to controversial and uninformed decisions and policies made by higher ups that were often unfair and/ or very difficult to implement which negatively impacted students and staff. -In many ways there was a toxic and dysfunctional culture again seeming to stem from the executive team being out of touch or at odds with their staff and students. There was regular turmoil and t leadership was often reactive to feedback, played favorites, and gaslighted and undermined staff and students despite legitimate concerns and perspective being expressed. - The organization often felt very hypocritical when it came to accessibility, inclusion, and respect towards the students and staff it claimed to support. While some steps were made to address these issues they usually backslid and ultimately were not given the time, energy, and resources needed to address the real issues. - Unrealistic expectations of staff and an unwillingness to increase staffing especially on the coaching level despite clear and consistent need. Staff who were in charge of supervising other staff were often given little training or support in how to do this effectively. Pretty much everyone was overwhelmed most of the time.
