I'll keep it short and simple. I worked at a public school in my district. I was a part of the aftercare program. There are about 20-30 staff in total, 4 of them being the “upper”. This job definitely changed me for the better as a person and I grew close to the kids I was trusted to look after. An opportunity came to be promoted into one of the “upper” positions. This new role would require us to activities for the kids to train leadership and socialization skills. I had TONS of ideas that would be perfect for us to reach their goals. Not only that, but I already helped this program achieve a bonus for having my group observed during one of our activities. I thought I'd be perfect for the role. I ended up losing the position to one of my coworkers who I would later find out had a record of teasing and making fun of the kids, even getting into arguments with their parents. This person was let go and I immediately went to my manager to ask if I could fill the role. I asked promptly because my manager told me that my co worker and I had awesome similar ideas. I was perfect for the fit right?
Now comes along some shady bs. My manager was kinda blowing me off about the promotion because they had spoken to this other person who used to work in the aftercare program before. I had to share the position with her for about 2 weeks or so. To not bore you with all the details, she is extremely rude and unprofessional. I'd call her emotionally to be quite frank. She would mock me about how I'd lose the job and yelled at me infront of my fellow “uppers” and they didn't help me at all. She was mad that I informed her that I usually take care of a certain area of recess and thought it was a good idea to make a scene inside the office.
Public schools are a joke. I cant count the amount of times the counselors would be sitting around talking about whatever bs while I was actually walking around and engaging with the kids. The amount of politics that goes on with the children in adults bodies being paid to watch your kids. I've seen kids being verbally abused over some petty shit. I'd say maybe half of the staff actually cared about their jobs? I'm not an emotional guy but I cried when I quit because I was worried about the kids and feel like I let them down by not being there for the next year.
btw I was making like $13/h at most to go through all of this lol.