Try to fix toxic Troop or start a new one?
Try to fix toxic Troop or start a new one?
Quick details: Rural area with 15-20miles between Troops.
Crossover cohort of 7 joining 3 age-outs and 6 Scouts.
Highly dysfunctional/toxic Troop with lax "boy led into the ground" leadership, open insubordination, and major behavioral problems.
2 school systems in Troop, the host district has all the problems and the other school's Scouts are exceptional in every way.
Scoutmaster retiring in December, I am the currently assumed replacement
The question I am struggling with is whether I should jump fully into this Troop to try to make it better for everyone, or if I should prioritize my own child and his cohort by keeping them out of the toxic mess. At a Camp work project recently we had 3 instances of open insubordination, Scouts openly telling the acting SPL "no" I'm not doing the job that was fairly assigned to them. No consequences. There is an ADHD kid who is a genuinely good kid, but he is caught in a nasty attention seeking habit that has him basically pestering the entire Troop constantly. The real issue there is that his father is a (good) leader who is great for the Troop in every way except for how he deals with his child. Every issue turns into a loud, antagonistic argument/show of force that grinds everything to a halt and leaves us all embarrassed. Dealing with the Scout is easy enough in my mind, dealing with a Father's parenting style is out of my league. He's a great guy, it just doesn't work for the Troop. Myself or this leader are the presumed next SM. They aren't the only behavior issues either, the open insubordination and borderline bullying of each other has infected everyone. It's just a group of boys who have never gotten along and I don't know if they ever will...our Troop has 2 school systems and the kids from ours are model Scouts, they are everything you want in a Scout, and that's an objective, unbiased opinion from other units.
We have the opportunity if we wish to start a new Troop just with our school/town... The thing that is holding me back is that if we pull our kids, I fear the Troop will fold. It's a Troop with a long history and it's barely hanging on. Going from one small Troop to 2 Troops struggling to meet minimum participation is not ideal. The Crossovers have had me as their Den Leader for 4 years and the parents have all expressed genuine trust in me that I feel like I would be breaking if I left to start "our own" Troop. The leadership is entirely checked out, no committee meetings, weekend campouts arranged on Wednesday by text without meal plans, duty rosters etc...these are problems that I'm not worried about fixing, but my big question is whether or not it's a good idea to dive into leadership with a possibility of bailing on it or if I should bail before getting ingrained. I mention bailing because if the toxicity persists, my son and his mates will NEED to be removed from the situation. The thing that makes the decision hard is the personal relationships I've built, I like these people, even the problematic ones...
The Scouting process provides the template for HOW to get around some of these problems, but my question is should I put a family-stressing level of effort into doing it knowing that if I fail, I will bail?