Arrowhead Montessori

Arrowhead Montessori has followed our policy There is nothing more to discuss

On the 30-day notice: There were four people in the meeting - the owner, the director and the lead teacher as well as the student's mother The owner stated that after the holidays, the student would need to have an aide if they wished for him to remain at the schoolThe director and the lead teacher were witness to this The time frame was even discussed amongst the staff before the meeting The student also came back to school for three more days If the student's mother believed that he was expelled immediately, I am not sure why she would have brought him back to school the following days.When the students' parents wrote the letter of withdrawal, an email was sent to them reminding them of the 30-day withdrawal policy regardless of their last physical day at school It was their choice whether or not to send their children to school for the month of December We never refused to send back the remaining balance in their account We stated that it would be sent on the 23rd of December, which was their last official day of school.On the tuition paid by the parents in 2012: There are no grounds for reimbursement for this money whatsoever The parents have funded their child's tuition almost completely with Arizona private school tax credit funds When the student first started our school he had not received any of these scholarship funds yet They paid the monthly tuition until scholarship money came inEvery scholarship we received for this student was applied to his accountThe student's parents have been awarded $18,in tax credit money, and $18,has been applied to their account Although the other issues that were brought up do not have to do with the dispute of money, we wanted to re-iterate what we told the student's mother in the meeting, as we feel this dispute is based on hurt feelings more than anything We have spent 1/years with her son Although his issues have been frustrating, we care deeply about him and have done the best we can Unfortunately, it had progressed to a point where complaints from other parents and concern for the other students necessitated the need for a one-on-one aide if he were to remain at school Not only were the other children in the school being affected, but the student's own self-esteem was being negatively affected as well The decision we made was for everyone's benefit, including her son.The check being sent out tomorrow, Dec 23, will be for $ The breakdown is as follows:- [redacted] credit [redacted] for the remaing year's pre-payment (the 3% annual paid in full discount was taken off because a the years tuition was not attended/paid) [redacted] 's balance for non-tuition fees [redacted] that are not covered by tax credit money

*** *** tuition for the 2014/school year was paid in full in July 2014. On November 19th, in a meeting with the owner, director and the lead teacher at Arrowhead Montessori, *** *** was told that her son, ***, needed a one-on-one assistant by the start of the
year (Jan 2015) if she wished to keep him enrolled.On November 23rd, the *** wrote an email to the school stating that they were withdrawing both of their children, and that November 25th would be their last day (see attachment).The enrollment form for our school states that we require 30-days written notice for withdrawal This was signed by *** *** (see attached).When the *** emailed on November 24th, asking for a check for the credit balance on the account by November 25th, we responded that a check would be sent on December 23rd, the last official day of enrollment.While there is no written policy on if and how we refund tuition paid in full, we will be sending a check refunding the remaining balance on the *** account December 23rd, as noted previously

On the 30-day notice:  There were four people in the meeting - the owner, the director and the lead teacher as well as the student's mother.  The owner stated that after the holidays, the student would need to have an aide if they wished for him to remain at the school. The director and the lead teacher were witness to this.  The time frame was even discussed amongst the staff before the meeting.  The student also came back to school for three more days.  If the student's mother believed that he was expelled immediately, I am not sure why she would have brought him back to school the following days.When the students' parents wrote the letter of withdrawal, an email was sent to them reminding them of the 30-day withdrawal policy regardless of their last physical day at school.  It was their choice whether or not to send their children to school for the month of December.  We never refused to send back the remaining balance in their account.  We stated that it would be sent on the 23rd of December, which was their last official day of school.On the tuition paid by the parents in 2012:  There are no grounds for reimbursement for this money whatsoever.  The parents have funded their child's tuition almost completely with Arizona private school tax credit funds.  When the student first started our school he had not received any of these scholarship funds yet.  They paid the monthly tuition until scholarship money came in. Every scholarship we received for this student was applied to his account. The student's parents have been awarded $18,067.35 in tax credit money, and $18,067.35 has been applied to their account.  Although the other issues that were brought up do not have to do with the dispute of money, we wanted to re-iterate what we told the student's mother in the meeting, as we feel this dispute is based on hurt feelings more than anything.  We have spent 2 1/2 years with her son.  Although his issues have been frustrating, we care deeply about him and have done the best we can.  Unfortunately, it had progressed to a point where complaints from other parents and concern for the other students necessitated the need for a one-on-one aide if he were to remain at school.  Not only were the other children in the school being affected, but the student's own self-esteem was being negatively affected as well.  The decision we made was for everyone's benefit, including her son.The check being sent out tomorrow, Dec 23, 2014 will be for $2429.00  The breakdown is as follows:-2847.00   [redacted] credit* for the remaing year's pre-payment (the 3% annual paid in full discount was taken off because a the years tuition was not attended/paid)  418.00   [redacted]'s balance for non-tuition fees* that are not covered by tax credit money

I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted], and have determined that this proposed action would not resolve my complaint.  For your reference, details of the offer I reviewed appear below.It is correct, that on November 19th I met with the owner, a lead teacher, and another teacher. However, they absolutely did not tell me we had until January to get a one on one assistant. They told me “there is nothing else they can do for [redacted] there”. They said, “you will need to hire a one on one aid or he will need to go to public school”.  Half way through the meeting two of teachers left and I stayed speaking with the owner. Again, she never once stated we had 30 days or until January to get a one on one aid for our son. She proceeded to discuss options of who she thought would be a good person for an aid, the cost of an aid, and such details. She said “If you can at least get someone for December since there is only a couple weeks of school left before the holidays”. I expressed that I am sure we cannot afford this.  She 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.  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 was to be done daily but the week after I gave this to them they kicked our son out.  Others have also pointed out that we already pay them $8,220.00 a year to educate our son and now they want us to hire someone to follow him around all day too.  This is just not reasonable.  After discussing everything with my husband he was furious and so was I.  We decided what she was doing was not right and if she was going to make one of our sons leave then she was in a sense kicking our family out.  We then gave our notice that their last daywould be November 25th 2014. This gave us a couple days to get our son registered at his new school.  They responded telling me that they have a “30 day withdrawal policy” and regardless of [redacted] last day he was still going to be charged another months tuition”. I told her that they did not give [redacted] a 30-day notice to stay at their school without us paying for a full time aide to follow him around.  She replied and stated that the owner had in fact given me a 30-day ,as-is, notice and this is nothing personal.  This was not true.  I was never made to feel, nor was I told our son could stay for 30 days with no aide (as-is).  I replied and explained the second you kicked out one of our sons we no longer fell within the intentions of any “30-day notice period clause”.  That clause is to protect you from people just up and leaving. We never just up and left you and would have never done that.  You would have a case if that is what we did but what is happening here is a very different situation.  You kicked us out.  You cannot just kick one kid out and expect us to still bring our other child there. Not to mention, we were not even getting what we were paying for with our other son, which I will go into in depth later.  We, nicely, gave them three opportunities to do the right and reasonable thing and return our money for this year’s tuition (December –May) but they refused.  All we ever wanted was to get refunded what we are rightfully owed and that is the tuition from December –May which totals $3,493.48.  Again, we did not just up and leave them high and dry.  They kicked us out.  We have never been unreasonable in our request.  I never anticipated this would be such a fight.  We had been there for three years.  I had, what I thought was, a good relationship with the owner and other teachers so we were hurt by the way this was handled.   When I have explained this to other people and STO’s I have contacted recently they respond with “wow, I would think they would waive that “policy” in this situation.  It seems like a good business practice and a common courtesy, especially given that they kicked you out. “ Not to mention, we had been there for three years, had a personal relationship with them, and helped bring in scholarship funds for their school.   I sent one final email and gave them until the close of business on December 2nd to reply or I would be left no choice but to escalate this matter.  They failed to reply so I have been forced to escalate this matter and get help in recovering what is rightfully owed to us. In the last emails I felt it necessary to remind them, in hopes they would recognize how we had let their error, failure to refund us the $2530.00, go for the sake of the relationship.  However, since they have made it very clear there has never been a relationship and they continue to refuse to be reasonable I then proceeded to remind her how she failed to refund me $2530.00 in the 2012 school year for tuition we paid prior to scholarships being credited to our account.  Please see the attached invoice that shows we made payments on 8/8/2012, 8/24/2012, 9/26/2012 and 10/29/2012 totaling $2530.00.  You will also notice the credit balance on our account, as of 11/30/2012, was -3271.19.  As of 11/30/2012 they had received $4,232.19 in scholarship funds.I asked them if I was able to get my money back once scholarship money came in and they first told me they were not allowed to refund our tuition when scholarship funds came in, but that was proven to be inaccurate after speaking with one of the Scholarship organizations.  When I brought this to schools attention she stated she supposedly “just found that out” but said nothing about giving us our money back.  I pulled this quote directly from the [redacted] website “16.  Can an STO award a scholarship for tuition for the full academic year even if a parent has already paid part of the tuition for the year?  Yes. However, in this case one of two things must occur. The school must refund the tuition already paid by the parent back to the parent.”  Therefore, they owe us $2,530.00 for the amount we paid prior to scholarship funds hitting our account.  Their inability to respond to the scholarship fund organizations caused us to lose other scholarship funds last year as well.  I was informed from the STO that they could not get a hold of anyone from school to verify our son still had a balance.  They were not returning phone calls or emails left for them. This caused us to lose a scholarship award.  The STO said they have to speak to someone there or they cannot release the funds to them. They said if they cannot get a hold of anyone then they have to move on to the next recipient.  That is exactly what happened.  We were very upset and were going to pull our children out if we ended up owing anything.  They found other scholarship money to cover their mistake so that one was let go.   I also know that this scholarship mishap has happened to other parents at the school.  These office/accounting errors are a common occurrence at this school.  For example, I noticedon the final invoice for our oldest son that they did not credit our account for a scholarship that was awarded and sent to the school back in July.  Also, we left 2 weeks ago and I had to call the scholarship organization myself to tell them they kicked us out and they owe you scholarship money back. If I had not done that, I don't doubt for one second that they would have kept that money.  I also just realized they charged my oldest son, the one they kicked out, another 30 days of tuition as well.  In dealing with this situation, we have found that no one governs private schools.  If there is ever an issue, we are left to turn to Revdex.com, news channels like 3 on your side, small claims court and review boards as recourse.There is no accountability.  There are no standards.  They can do what ever they want.  My situation has proven that they take full advantage of this.  Sadly, there is even more than what is in this complaint. Even sadder, I would bet they are not going to take anything away from this and try improve their school.  Honestly, it amazes me she has not been sued.  These things would never be tolerated in a public school. What they have done to us is wrong and the public needs to be aware of their business practices. Private parent teacher conferences are discussed with other parents.  Personal information is not respected and conversations between parents and management are not kept confidential. Some people that aren't even employees are giving the appearance they represent the school, and they are disclosing confidential conversations.  There is continuous complaining from management to other parents about other students and other parents. They do not respect parents individual parenting choices.  For example, let’s say you want your child to eat only organic. Well, if they happen to eat some snack they have for the day, special treats they have, or someone else shares their food they could care less.  In fact, I have seen them actually laugh and support them eating what they are not allowed to eat because they think the parent’s rule is stupid.  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 an 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.   Our older son has been in Montessori since he was 2 and a half and has always been in the primary classroom and never has he taken a nap. He was fully potty trained at 2 and a half and that is the only requirement there is to be in the primary classroom. Might I also mention this separate “transition” room goes against the entire core of Montessori.  The philosophy behind Montessori is that the older ones teach the younger ones.   By creating this “transition room” you are preventing this and not providing the Montessori education we are paying for.  We asked them not to nap him but I would find out they were still napping him behind my back.  So, we basically paid for our child to nap half the day.  They said “kids in this room have to nap”. Nowhere, on the primary day classroom schedule does it say anything about a “transition room”, or anything about required nap.  It specifically states the primary class is 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.   In July of 2014 we paid $5,959.50 for our son to attend their primary class of which he was never placed in might I add. He attended from August to November 2014 (4 months). Therefore, we are owed $3,493.48. They are stating they are only reimbursing me $2,803.00 and not until December 23rd. Another very wrong thing they are doing is trying to hold our money until December 23rd. They have absolutely no right to hold our funds until December 23rd.   They even stated in their last rebuttal that they had no policy stating this.  This is yet another example of them doing whatever they want.  They also owe us $2,530.00 for tuition we paid in 2012 that was never returned to us. The total we are seeking refunded is $6,023.48.

Regards,

[redacted]

Arrowhead Montessori has followed our policy.  There is nothing more to discuss.

On the 30-day notice:  There were four people in the meeting - the owner, the director and the lead teacher as well as the student's mother.  The owner stated that after the holidays, the student would need to have an aide if they wished for him to remain at the school. The director and the lead teacher were witness to this.  The time frame was even discussed amongst the staff before the meeting.  The student also came back to school for three more days.  If the student's mother believed that he was expelled immediately, I am not sure why she would have brought him back to school the following days.When the students' parents wrote the letter of withdrawal, an email was sent to them reminding them of the 30-day withdrawal policy regardless of their last physical day at school.  It was their choice whether or not to send their children to school for the month of December.  We never refused to send back the remaining balance in their account.  We stated that it would be sent on the 23rd of December, which was their last official day of school.On the tuition paid by the parents in 2012:  There are no grounds for reimbursement for this money whatsoever.  The parents have funded their child's tuition almost completely with Arizona private school tax credit funds.  When the student first started our school he had not received any of these scholarship funds yet.  They paid the monthly tuition until scholarship money came in. Every scholarship we received for this student was applied to his account. The student's parents have been awarded $18,067.35 in tax credit money, and $18,067.35 has been applied to their account.  Although the other issues that were brought up do not have to do with the dispute of money, we wanted to re-iterate what we told the student's mother in the meeting, as we feel this dispute is based on hurt feelings more than anything.  We have spent 2 1/2 years with her son.  Although his issues have been frustrating, we care deeply about him and have done the best we can.  Unfortunately, it had progressed to a point where complaints from other parents and concern for the other students necessitated the need for a one-on-one aide if he were to remain at school.  Not only were the other children in the school being affected, but the student's own self-esteem was being negatively affected as well.  The decision we made was for everyone's benefit, including her son.The check being sent out tomorrow, Dec 23, 2014 will be for $2429.00  The breakdown is as follows:-2847.00   [redacted] credit* for the remaing year's pre-payment (the 3% annual paid in full discount was taken off because a the years tuition was not attended/paid)  418.00   [redacted]'s balance for non-tuition fees* that are not covered by tax credit money

I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted], and have determined that this proposed action would not resolve my complaint.  For your reference, details of the offer I reviewed appear below.This has nothing to do with hurt feelings; this is about Arrowhead Montessori stealing our money and the unethical business practices by which they do business.We received a check on December 24th in the amount of $2,429.00. However, this was not the full amount we are owed.  We are still owed $1,064.48 at the very least.On the 30-­-day notice: I don’t care if there were a hundred of her employees in the meeting, she did not give us until the New Year to find an aide or remove him. She told us we needed to hire an aide or take him to private school. As previously stated, she stated to me the very next morning “she told her son’s girlfriend she hoped she could start by Monday”. The reason he stayed in 2 more days was because we were mulling over how to handle this and mulling over your outrageous request for a one on one aide.  After discussing it with others we felt them asking us to hire an aide for our son after we already paid them over $8,000 a year was ridiculous and unreasonable. 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.In the email they sent back, Exhibit A, you will notice after I told them we are withdrawing both boys they state “Regardless of [redacted] last day of attending school…..” You will notice it says nothing about [redacted] and his 30-­-day notice. This is because they did not give him one.  It was very clear they did not want our oldest son there any longer. For the record, our last day was November 25th 2014 NOT December 23rd. You had absolutely no legal right to hold our money for an additional 30 days and they even admitted this in their last rebuttal.  They pretty much just said they are holding because they can.On the tuition: They have completely twisted this issue.  In the last correspondence you will notice they are now deducting a additional $418.00 from our youngest sons account for charges that were already paid for. On top of that, they trying to take these already paid charges from my youngest sons account reimbursement. This is so completely outrageous and illegal. They cannot go back to 2012 and bill us charges that were already paid, and then take them from my other son’s account. The director of the school is responsible for giving the current balance on the account when the STO’s call them to verify it.  If the director gave them a balance that was for charges that were not “scholarship eligible” that is her error and not ours for which we cannot be liable for. I have numerous statements showing I have a zero balance going into each year. When we put in our notice on November 23rd we requested final statements from each child. These statements are attached as Exhibits B and C. In these statements you will notice we have a zero balance and a .25 balance. These statements are dated 11/24/2014 and 11/25/2014. On our oldest son’s statement, Exhibit B you will notice a credit balance of $-­-608.35. The only error in this statement is the scholarship from IBE in the amount of $250.00 that is missing. So, the actual credit balance should be $-­- 858.35. These are the statements prior to filing this Revdex.com claim. Also note, in  Exhibit C, our credit balance is $-­-2,803.00. Exhibit A from the director and Exhibit B from the owner both state that the amount of $2,803.00 will be refunded. However, since filing this complaint with the Revdex.com they have produced recently falsified documents, in their last rebuttal, and manipulated them in such a way to try to deduct even more funds from our reimbursement. You will notice these “new statements” are dated 12/22/2014. Anyone can see what they are trying to do here. May I also point out in our oldest sons account they are refunding [redacted] $783.85 of money that should not be refunded to them. [redacted] paid them $618.60 prior to [redacted] so [redacted] is owed no refund. This is just more proof of their poor accounting skills. They are thinking if we are going to go back to 2012 then so are they. Well, that would be fine if they were to do that but then the fact remains they owe us for the tuition we paid that should have been reimburse to us from 2012 in the amount of $2530.00. If they are not, then they cannot go back and try to collect fees that were already paid for from 2012/2013/2014. We brought up their 2012 error as a point of reference in hopes they would end this matter and just give us what we are owed for this year. Again, as stated on the [redacted] website“16. Can an STO award a scholarship for tuition for the full academic year even if a parent has already paid part of the tuition for the year? Yes. However, in this case one of two things must occur. The school must refund the tuition already paid by the parent back to the parent “Lets go back: We paid Arrowhead Montessori when we first started in 2012 until scholarship money began crediting our account (please reference supporting documents in our second letter to the Revdex.com). When we began paying this money we knew we could have the entire year paid for but the money was just going to start to come in later than usual cause we had just found out we qualified for funds. Therefore, we paid them our money until these scholarships came in. I asked the director if we could get this money back when scholarships came in and she said, “No, the money you pay can not be refunded”.  This was completely false as proven by the [redacted] website. She admitted herself later that year that she learned she could have refunded the money back to us. She could have and she should have refunded us the money we paid them. However, because she did not refund my money, when STO’s called to find out what our balance was she gave them a balance deducting what we paid cash. This resulted in us not being able to collect the full years tuition in scholarship funds. This was Arrowhead Montessori’s error. At the time, we let it go for the sake of the relationship. The truth of the matter is we would not have even dredged this back up if they had just been reasonable and refunded the amount we were due for our youngest son. We did not even bring it up until it was clear they were not going to give us back what we are owed. We thought it necessary to remind them that we lost $2530.00 because of their error so the very least they could do is reimburse us what we are owed from this years tuition which was the $3,493.48. Then there is also the fact, which again we did not bring up at first, which we did not get what we paid for with our youngest son. We paid for a full day of primary schooling. They made up this “transition room” and then required our son to nap half the day. This was not what we paid for. Nowhere is this even in the primary classrooms description that they will be required to nap. In fact, you will notice it says the contrary. It says there is a 1.5 hour work cycle in the afternoon. Please see Exhibit E as proof. Also, the proof is in the document they supplied as evidence Exhibit F, which was our signed enrollment form. We could also seek reimbursement for the half day they forced us to nap him even after our repeated request not to. The amount of this, for the four months, would be an additional $380.00.As for the 3% discount: Again, nowhere on our signed agreement does is state that if paid in full there is a 3% discount but if you leave or we kick you out then you lose that discount. That discount should still applied to our account.We tried to end this amicably but they were unreasonable. This has nothing to do with hurt feelings but everything to do with them stealing our money. All we were asking for was the $3,493.48 from our youngest sons tuition that was paid in full in advance and rightfully owed to us after they kicked out our older son with no notice. If they had been reasonable we would not be here. They could have kept the scholarship funds and taken the 30 days for [redacted] and we would not have cared. We also would have not brought back up the $2,530.00 we lost from their failure/error to return our money when the scholarship funds hit our account. This did not have to get to this point and they only have themselves to blame. They would actually be ahead of the game if they had just refunded us [redacted] tuition but they insisted on being greedy and not taking into account how they cost us money due to their error on the scholarship issue. We will now take it as far as necessary   to get what is rightfully owed to us. We are not alone in our feelings. Other parents, other STO’s and anyone we tell this to cannot believe what they are doing to us. I have communicated via email for our protection and for evidentiary purposes. They are upset and now are trying to take more of our money unlawfully.  I have supplied more than enough proof to show the new amount of $418.00 they are trying to deduct from my other son’s reimbursement was manipulated out of anger from the filing of this complaint.As for the NEW [redacted] charge: We gave them notice that we no longer wished to be at the school on November 23rd. I contacted [redacted] and they confirmed Arrowhead Montessori placed their order on November 24th. If they did in fact order my brick then that is their error. They had not received payment from us when they ordered this and they knew that. They also knew we were not leaving on terms that would result in us wanting our children’s brick placed at her school. I can also guarantee you if it was actually ordered, she will not be placing this brick in her schoolyard. Therefore, the fact they went ahead and supposedly ordered this brick is completely their error. Also note, it was not on the original final invoice. They are just throwing charges on there out of revenge for us filing this complaint.In an effort to end this and put it behind us, we would be willing to accept just the $1,064.48 for the tuition that is rightfully owed to us for [redacted] unused tuition.Regards,[redacted]

[redacted] tuition for the 2014/2015 school year was paid in full in July 2014.  On November 19th, in a meeting with the owner, director and the lead teacher at Arrowhead Montessori, [redacted] was told that her son, [redacted], needed a one-on-one assistant by the start of the...

year (Jan 2015) if she wished to keep him enrolled.On November 23rd, the [redacted] wrote an email to the school stating that they were withdrawing both of their children, and that November 25th would be their last day (see attachment).The enrollment form for our school states that we require 30-days written notice for withdrawal.  This was signed by [redacted] (see attached).When the [redacted] emailed on November 24th, asking for a check for the credit balance on the account by November 25th, we responded that a check would be sent on December 23rd, the last official day of enrollment.While there is no written policy on if and how we refund tuition paid in full, we will be sending a check refunding the remaining balance on the [redacted] account December 23rd, as noted previously.