Pros
Coworkers - My coworkers were lovely and a joy to be around. Facilities - The campuses are nice, and the campus staff are kind and professional. I worked here for 4 summers and genuinely enjoyed it until my last one (2025) when new management was transitioned in.
Cons
Poorly written curriculum - Lack of understanding in a grade-level's/age-range's skill resulted in curriculum that didn't engage the kids or was too difficult, leaving the counselors to finish their work for them and deal with an increased amount of frustration and meltdowns. In my particular track they didn't give us any curriculum, just finished projects to pick from and we had to improvise teaching strategies and appropriate progression while not knowing how to complete the projects ourselves. Unreliable supplies - Some sites were treated with favoritism, leaving the others to work with minimal supplies and frustration from HR when we couldn't "make it work". Pay discrepancies - After we realized some rehired Lead Counselors were getting paid significantly less ($1-3/hr) than newly hired Lead Counselors concerns were raised with management, and despite similar education, previous experience level outside of this job, and working ability between the employees experiencing discrepancies, management continued to cite these reasons as the reason for the sliding scale. Additionally, it "just so happened" that the people getting paid less were women. Lack of sufficient training - They did not train the new lead or assistant counselors in how to use the equipment, or in how to teach the kids how to use it. This was especially relevant when dealing with power tools and combustible substances in the woodworking track. Condescending and dismissive - Upon bringing various concerns to upper management, we were told to brainstorm the solutions ourselves in a super condescending way, despite it being management's job to come up with solutions to problems. When someone identified a more efficient way of completing an administrative task, they were blown off as being annoying. Management continually talked about employees they didn't like behind their backs. Unsafe ratios - In the interest of profit, as many kids were put into the classes as possible, creating cramped spaces where it became impossible to do the designed curriculum. This resulted in a lack of ability to provide 1:1 help as advertised and put the counselors and kids in an unsafe situation.
