So we have exactly the same situation.
Our gym has a few locations, we were at one that was outrageously far but my daughter was friends with the girls (she was mid age range there) and I was friends with the parents. I couldn’t keep doing the drive though, so we moved to a closer location.
The coaches are great but the girls are HORRIBLE. One girl, who is repeating our level and bitter at life, is just beyond nasty to my daughter and another girl who moved to the gym. She herself has only been at this gym for a year, but two of our teammates came over from the same gym as her a year before her, then another one came and they formed their own clique (understandable as they’ve known each other since level 1). But she goes out of her way to make sure none of the other girls talk to my daughter. On the days she’s not there, my kid is happy, laughing with the other girls and socializing. On the other days… they literally won’t talk to her. I talked to the coach when this girl made a fat joke about my kid (who… is not far but is at that age where those comments stick in the brain), he talked to her and made it clear he’s not here for that bull****, and she’s left my daughter alone for now, but she’s still isolating the girls from her.
For an 11 year old, this kid is so freaking vile, the things she says about other kids and parents is so nasty it’s unbelievable. I don’t get to vibe with the parents for the most part and the girls are all middle school age and just… awful. They feel a certain type of way about my kid asking to do more reps of skills, or completing all of conditioning when they go play in a corner. The parents don’t help when they tell their kids they should work as hard as mine, it makes the other girls even more resentful.
Sorry to hijack, but this topic is stressing me out so hard. I’ve also thought about moving but no guarantee it would be any better at this age (my daughter is the second youngest one in optionals right now), and she loves the coaches.
Btw I don’t see coaches not going to awards as a red flag, ours might pop their head in and say good job but that’s it - they need to grab food between other sessions or they want to go home, I don’t blame them, awards are long as hell