Complaint Review: Arrowhead Montessori - peoria Arizona

 Our oldest son went there for the last 2 and a half years. Our 3 year old went there for the first part of this year as well. They have a nice outdoor environment and facility but don’t let that fool you. I assure you it is all smoke and mirrors. I was in the “mom group”, so I saw first hand what was really going on behind the scenes, how the kids are treated, and how they do business. I, as did many other parents, kept quiet for the sake of our children but what they have done to us, and how they do business, is out of control and it is time to break the silence. I only wish we had never stepped foot in this school. My review is long and detailed so if you want the bullet points her they are: *The owner of this school does what ever she wants. It is a private school so no one governs them, which means they can do what ever they want and us, as parents, have no one to turn to for help. *The owner is a liar and a thief. They have lied about giving us a 30-day notice to leave and has stolen our tuition that we paid for in advance. She falsified statements and stole even more money, from our refund, after I filed the complaint with the BBB. What she has done is vindictive and illegal. *We paid for full day in the primary classroom, which has an afternoon work cycle. They decided to put our second son in a “transition room” and give him a nap for half the day. We specifically told them we did not want him to nap but they ignored us and I would find out they napped him anyways. *They make fun of parent’s wishes (like certain diets, etc.) and don’t always honor them *The owner is burnt out and is mean to the kids. *The owner and teachers do not have any discretion, value personal information or privacy. Private information and conversations about parents and children, including private parent teacher conferences, are frequently discussed amongst other parents. *The owner is extremely judgmental and unprofessional. She talks badly about other students, parents and her own staff. *We have lost scholarship awards due to their poor business practices (as have other families). *People that aren't even employees are giving the appearance they represent the school, and they are disclosing confidential conversations. *There are different rules for different people and are inconsistent. I have filed a complaint with the BBB and Ripoff.com. You can read our full complaint on their website and see in detail what they did to us and others. Our complaint was closed with the BBB as unresolved because they are refusing to return our money and the BBB cannot force anyone to do anything. In fact, after filing this complaint with the BBB they kept even more of our money out of revenge for filing the complaint. We are in the process of taking our case to other agencies to get what is rightfully owed to us. What they are doing is wrong and anyone considering taking their children there should be aware of their business practices. . The things they have done to us and what we have observed would never be tolerated in a public school. The fact that private schools don’t have to account to anyone is very scary and needs to be changed. You think because you pay out of pocket for private school that you will be given the best treatment and education. Arrowhead Montessori has proven that this is a huge misperception. No one governs them so they do whatever they want with no accountability. Our situation proves how they take full advantage of this fact. One great example of this is our current situation and the one that broke the camel’s back. They told us we needed to hire a one on one aide for our 5 year old, on top of the tuition, to follow him around every day/all day. Just because my son has sensory issues and needs to move around more than most does not require him to have a one on one aide. He is currently in public school and is doing just fine. We can now see Arrowhead Montessori was the problem. He does not have a one on one aide in public school, and they would supply this if it were needed. They wanted us to hire someone by the following Monday or our son would have to leave. They did not give us a 30-day notice. The owner then added her own two cents “if it were my child I would do everything in my power to get the help he needed”, as if we were not doing enough. Our son has been at that school for three years. He only had 6 months left before going to a new school anyway. He has always had some sensory issues and whatever they suggested we do, we did. He has seen the best doctors in the valley, had private therapy and therapy at the school. He is very smart and sweet but needs to move more than most kids. He is not a bad kid. They said they would work on what ever the therapist recommended and do it daily. However, I gave them the “sensory diet” from our therapist the week prior to this meeting. This “diet” was to be done daily but the week after I gave this to them they kicked our son out. We paid in full for the year for our second son to get the 3% discount. When we withdrew him they decided not only to keep an extra month of tuition but to keep our refund for an extra 30 days just because. They even told the BBB that they admit it does not say it anywhere in their policy; it is just what they do. We had a statement showing what was owed back to us but after filing the BBB report they falsified a new statement, going back 3 years and taking charges that were already paid and taking them out of my second sons account. Therefore, refunding us over $400 less than what I was originally disputing. On top of this, I just found out they never even sent the scholarship reimbursement to the organization as they told the BBB they were doing on their “new” statement. They were not supposed to refund the scholarship this money anyways because it paid for our August tuition. They were also giving them back more than they even awarded us. They were doing this just so they didn’t give to us. What they did was not only vindictive but also illegal. They have stolen our money. Another example: our second son started there this year and we paid for him to be in the primary classroom. As stated, in black and white on their website, the primary room has a AM work cycle and a PM work cycle. Our son is fully potty trained and does not nap. However, they created this “transition room” this year and put him in there even though that is not what we paid for. They made up their own rules and said kids in this room had to nap. May I also point out that this made up “ transition room” is not true Montessori. The whole philosophy behind Montessori method is to have the older children teach the younger children. It bothered us from day one that he was in this room and not in the primary classroom as we had paid for. We addressed it with them several times. We asked them not to nap him but I would find out they were still napping him behind my back. So, needless to say, we were not happy we were paying for our child to nap half the day. They said, “Kids in this room have to nap”. Well, like I said, they just make things up as they go and do what ever they want. Nowhere, on the primary day classroom schedule, does it say anything about a “transition room” or anything about a nap. It specifically states they are to have a 1.5-hour work cycle in the afternoon. We did not want him to nap, told them not to nap him, and paid for him to be in the primary room but that was not done. Arrowhead Montessori is a disgrace to the Maria Montessori name. They pick and choose which Montessori rules to follow, which is one of the reasons why they are not and never will be AMI certified. Anyone can open a school and call it a Montessori. If you want a true Montessori education than this is not the place for you. The only way to ensure this is to go to a facility that cares enough to get AMI certified. They do not respect parents individual parenting choices. For example: If you have a special diet or you don’t want them to have certain things, this is not the place for you. They may honor your request if they remember or have time but I have seen it myself where management will not only make fun of the parent’s request, but also not even honor it. For example: There was one family who wanted their child to eat organic only. If they happen to eat some snack they have for the day, special treats they came across, or someone else shares their food they could care less. In fact, I actually have seen them joke and laugh about the parents “stupid rule” and support them eating what they are not allowed to eat just because they think the parent’s rule is stupid. The owner and teachers do not have any discretion, value personal information or privacy. Private information and conversations about parents and children, including private parent teacher conferences, are frequently discussed amongst other parents. The owner is extremely judgmental and talks badly about other students, parents and her own staff. In fact, I had never had a conversation with her when she didn’t gossip or should I say complaining about some child or parent at some point during our conversation. It was a very negative atmosphere. I have numerous examples of this. One of the more disturbing one being when the owner discussed another parent’s parent teacher conference with us and the confidential concerns the parent had with their child and their other sibling. She also went on to discuss what the parent told her about the parent’s bad marriage. When she was telling us this, all I kept thinking was “ I should not be hearing this” and I wonder what they say about our kids when we are not around. Other parents had witnessed this and had the same concerns. No professionalism One example, at an ice cream social fundraising event, where a group of parents brought in all the donated raffle items, the owner of the school purchased a large number of tickets for a raffle. She won several prizes that were intended for the people donating to their fundraiser/school. It doesn’t look good when the party receiving the proceeds of a charitable event wins the prizes associated with the fundraiser. Especially, when the money from the fundraiser is going back to them. We have lost scholarship awards due to their poor business practices. They failed to return calls and emails, which lead to us losing scholarship money. The scholarship organization was unable to get a hold of administration at the school. The school did not return phone calls or emails, which forced the scholarship organization to award our scholarship to someone else. I was informed of this from the actual scholarship organization. We were furious, needless to say. They first told me “they were not allowed to refund our tuition when scholarship funds came in but I found that to not be true from one of the Scholarship organizations. When I brought this to the person in charge of the money she stated she supposedly “just found that out” but said nothing about giving us our money back. They owe us $2,530.00 we paid to them that was supposed to be reimbursed to us once scholarship money came in that never was. It states this, in black and white, on the Dept. of Revenue’s website. I also know, thanks to the gossip of management that this scholarship mishap has happened to other parents at the school. People that aren't even employees are giving the appearance they represent the school, and they are disclosing confidential conversations. There are different rules for different people and are inconsistent. For example: she refused to let our 5 year old do a half-day because that was her rule for everyone. However, another parent got her to bend the rules for her son for the shear point she didn’t think he needed to be there all day. However, when I needed to do half day because we live far away and I did not want to pay for our second son to nap half the day she said we could not go half day. I even called her out on this and she got very upset. They do not facilitate a learning environment. Only the well-behaved angelic kids get taught. Our son would act out and is now telling us things that prove we were blind to what was really going on there. He was not being taught what other children his age were all doing. In fact, the owner herself once told me she won’t let him do certain work materials cause she fears he will break them. So, let me get this straight, we paid them over $8,000.00 a year to educate our son only to find out he is not taught certain lesson because their supplies are fragile. I do believe the term for this would be “Assumption of risk”. You have a pre-school with breakable things. Kids break things, period. The truth is, they gave up on our son long before this. They would mention that they would have him do manual labor (moving bricks from the owners trunk, etc.) and/or just put him outside on the playground the majority of the day. Now, looking back, I have a feeling this went on for a lot longer than we were made aware of. Now that we are no longer there and our son is in a real school we can see how wrong Arrowhead Montessori was for us and how unprofessional it truly was. The truth is our son has learned more in a month at his public school than he did in two and a half years at Arrowhead Montessori. He also does not have any of the “issues” that they would say he had at their school. He is thriving at public school and is happy again. I urge anyone considering taking their children there to think twice. We are continuing the fight so I will update this review as it progresses.