Fairfax County Park Authority Leader/Leaders With Leaders/Leader With Leader With Leaders Reviews

Pros

The job was really fun and a good way to earn for the Summer.

Cons

We are not paid enough for the work we do. Sometimes we are understaffed.

Pros

-The program (Rec-PAC) is exceptionally useful to the local communities, especially for low-income families -Having camp sites based out of school buildings gives great resources like playgrounds, gymnasium space, and a cafeteria -Great experience for young adults looking to build a resume of working with kids

Cons

-Training is brief and insufficient and staff who have never worked with children prior are expected to be ready to manage a group of up to 18 -Resources (art supplies, games, etc) are tight and it is often not possible for sites to get more should supplies run low, break, or get lost. -Staffing is done inconsistently, with some sites being assigned far too many leaders and some being perpetually understaffed despite being at (or above) camper registration capacity. -Surplus site leaders are not formally let go, but are demoted to on-call positions for the remainder of the camp period

Pros

The kids are great and very nice to work with. Excellent experience for future educators and bureaucrats.

Cons

If you work here you will be paid part-time (7.5 hours) however you are actually forced to work more than 8 hours each day or you will be fired. Some days I was forced to stay 3 hours after my shift ended. I worked for 3 years at different sites and this was the case at all of them. No lunch breaks either. There were quite a few times when I was told to buy something for the program and then my supervisor changed their mind about it after, leading me to not be reimbursed. Rec-PAC's administration treats their lower level employees terribly and provides all of the employees above the director position rental cars and free gas for the entire summer, which all of them use for leisure. These people only collect paperwork from sites and spend the rest of their time doing things like scavenger hunts across northern Virginia and eating out on taxpayer money. If you plan on becoming a leader, I promise that you will be disrespected by the administration. Additionally, the administrators treat the summer camp like it is a school and pointlessly try to enforce rules like no talking in the hallways or everyone has to walk back to where they came from even if children were whispering. Keep in mind that these camps take place inside of completely empty schools where noise disruptions do not matter. Also the legal supervision ratio of adult to child is rarely met. There were times where I had 35 kids to watch after on my own. Also if you happen to come across "inclusion specialists" they most likely will show up high on drugs (which they will tell you about) and take naps on the job in their car.

Pros

I was a summer camp counselor for the Rec-PAC program The job is very rewarding if you like playing with children. The supervisors are strict, but it is with a good reason (you are working with children after all).

Cons

I felt like I was drained every, single day so that my overall experience during the summer felt terrible as I just did not have the energy for my own life. I like kids, but I did not like them that much to dedicate such a big portion of my day to them. However, this may have just been the experience I had as I believe I had one of the more difficult sites to work at. Also, being a public program, the pay is not going to be anything lucrative.

Pros

Always active, free to use facility once employed

Cons

It is stressful to watch over peoples lives, time consuming

Pros

Nice people, decent pay, easy work

Cons

screaming children, have to be first aid/cpr certified