So now with my one problem child employee gone (yeah!) I am left with the rest of my crew to work with and work on improving. And we need work. I was hoping that the dragging down feeling I had with my problem person would change just by having her leave, it is better but we need more improvement. My assistant is great, I really love how he is a natural with the kids and up on everything. I do need to do the organizing of stuff often because that isn't his strength but that is fine. So much I am able to delegate that I have not been able to for years. I have a feeling that this summer or next year he will get a job like mine, and I will support him in that.

Meanwhile my longest term staff keeps going in and out of being totally engaged. This has been forever, when we had one person to run all camps she said she didn't want her to work camps because she was not always engaged. Just yesterday she was not managing her group very well and my assistant had been in the room and told me later. There have been times when she was being observed and didn't have all her materials ready for example. Still she knows how to write some great lesson plans, has good knowledge, just also checks out. The new guy needs to really step up and write those d**n lesson plans! He is not getting it that he needs to write them, we sit with him, write deadlines, even gave him a week of lesson plans already written to get started. He has the older kids and they need some good projects to really get them focused and behavior to be good. I literally do not have what he needs to do today after multiple requests. Then one of my instructors who teaches one science class a week left the classroom so trashed that the teacher won't let him use the room again. It is the class room he is a para in, how awkward.

So getting tough on people, I think I have been overly understanding that this job attracts people who are not teachers in training and highly skilled. Maybe the best equivalent is managing fast food or lower retail. For my most experienced staff and the new guy I am adding to the lesson plan where they have to write the script for starting a lesson, too often it is just 'we are making pom pom bunnies'. We need to have a more engaging start to a project. For my new guy I am putting in scheduled time to lesson plan plus that script. For my science instructor I need his lesson plans this week or this will be his last science class with me. We have one more 6 weeks session before the end of the year and I can get someone else.

Great news is that I already have 4 summer staff that are super strong! I have worked with 3 of them before, and so if I am still at this job I have that boost.