I’m [25F] a lead teacher and my assistant [50F] hates me/is trying to push me out of my job after working together three weeks.

Hopefully this won’t be too long of a post.

So this year, I got a job as a lead teacher at a preschool, and my assistant is also new at the job. She’s much older than me with some experience as an aide for special education, but I was given lead because my degree is in a child education field whereas hers is something with business administration. I was also given lead over her because she has another job (my boss explained all of this to me).

So, since day one, she’s pushing me aside for everything and I’m not even sure what words to use for her behavior. For example, she’s really abrasive with the kids, tells them “no” often, and doesn’t really get to their level whereas I try to be communicative and get down on an equal level so I can understand what’s going on. So if a child is upset, they 98% of the time will come to me over her. But when she sees me comforting a child or handling a disagreement between two, she will step in, literally take over and talk over me, pull the child away from me, etc.

There are many examples of her pushing her way into my job. She will put important paperwork I need from parents in the wrong places in an attempt to file them, put the wrong stuff in the wrong child’s book bags, or try to make things without fully understanding what they’re for (such as an art project placemat for the children’s “dad day” that she was doing incorrectly because she didn’t have all the info about the event, but took upon herself because she saw another class doing it). Then when I ask why she’s doing that, she complains she has nothing to do while watching me run around with eight 3-year-olds.

There are also small examples;

While waiting to greet the kids in the morning, I make small talk with another teacher, each of us from our respective doors, and today she physically leaned in front of me like a wall between us, and took over the entire conversation, interrupting me in the process.

Additionally, she went to sign out and leave for the day, and while I was talking to a parent, she came back in when she saw us and completely hijacked the discussion. She even corrected me on things that I wasn’t wrong about, I just didn’t use language she would use (like I said gummies instead of fruit snacks). This constant policing is killing me.

On top of that, assistants have shorter hours. I come in early and stay late often to do lesson planning, get training from other leads, prepare for open houses, etc. but she’s always extremely precise about what time she gets to leave and never offers to stay and help. But then when she does come in, she basically tries to run me. She tells me since I don’t have kids, I cannot possible feel empathy or understand how parents feel about things, and my lack of experience makes me second to her.

I’m posting this because confrontation gives me the absolute worst anxiety, I’m diagnosed with military- trauma ptsd, and I just can’t with this woman. I almost quit today cause my mentality is “if she wants lead so bad, she can have it”. Please, help.

**Also, I’d like to avoid getting my boss involved right away.

TL;DR: I’m a lead teacher and my assistant is basically bullying me in a very passive aggressive manner, pushing me out of my job, and I don’t know what to do.

Submitted August 28, 2019 at 07:32PM by Wazujimoip https://ift.tt/2L4Khyg