Northern Virginia Academy of Early Learning: Burke Campus

My name is Shareese L***, l am the Program Director of Northern Virginia Academy of Early Learning, Burke Campus, and th is letter is in response to a complaint # ***, filed on 9/20/We were contacted on 9/15/17, not 9/16/as stated in the formal complaintOur hours of operation are
Monday-Friday 6:30am-6:30pmThe complaint also states that we were paid approximately $for registration for her children, which also is falseThe exact payment of registration was $225, which is $75/per child, documentation is on file with this payment amount, which the claimant received a copy of this agreement on 5/15/17, by the state of VirginiaWhen asked who the case worker was for this family, the response was "I don't know." It was later stated on 9/20/17, that the case worker stated "They should refund your registration fee." We were never contacted by any case worker of the state of Virginia, making the claim we "owed" the claimant a "refund of their registration." The claimant stated on 9/18/that they did not know who their case worker was, making it impossible to contact the person in charge of this caseThe claimant also stated that they never received a parent handbook with our written policies, found on page of the handbook, stating the registration fee was non-refundableThis is false, we have a record on separate occasions where the claimant signed stated they received a copy of our handbook and that they understand our policiesThe dates that the claimant received these handbooks were 9/28/10, 10/17/and 8/4/As well as 4/4/and 4/8/15, where the claimant signed that they read and accepted our tuition agreementThis is separate accounts that the claimant was informed of our written policy and acknowledged said agreementThe claimant received a parent handbook when each of the children was initially registered with the facilityThe complaint also states that they did not register her children for the 2017-school year, which again is also falseOur facility holds pre-registration for the upcoming school year every MarchThe claimant was re-registered at our facility on 2/27/17; the same week pre-registration took placeBecause they had just re-enrolled in our program, a preregistration form was not needed to state their registryThe family was dis-enrolled from our program 10/6/16, due to them sing their subsidized payment from the state of VirginiaWhen they were able to start receiving their subsidy again, months later 2/27/17, they were re-enrolledWe are very puzzled as to why the claimant states they never registered their children for the 2017-school year, when they in fact re-enrolled in our program on 2/27/The claimant stated that because they had to dis-enroll, in October, due to lack of money to pay for tuition without receiving subsidized payment from the state, they should not have to pay another registration fee for her childrenRegistration fees are charged yearly, every March, and the claimant was re-registered in our program on 2/27/We were notified by the claimant on 2/23/17, that their case had been re-instated and they were once again going to be receiving subsidized payment from the state of Virginia, and that the claimant wanted to start care 2/27/This was also confirmed by the case worker, via email that care was to start again on Monday 2/27/Each child had a completed file and there were no updates that were needed to the file therefore additional paperwork was not neededPre-registration for the 2017-school year started on 2/27/17, the same day that the family started careNo pre-registration form was needed from this family because they had just been re-enrolled at our facilityFurthermore the claimant has stated that they have never filled out a pre-registraticn form for their childrenAgain, this is false, we have at least pre-registration forms on file with this family, we have documentation with the parent's signature as proof of this, and tlhe pre-registration forms have nothing to do with the state of Virginia subsidizing payments, For this particular instance, a pre-registration form was not needed due to the family re-registering with us again the same day pre-registration started, for our current families already enrolled in our careThe claimant also stated that she spoke with me in the spring about her older children were attending our summer campThis is falseOn 2/27/17, when this family started in our care, she was told in person, that during Summer camp, she would have to pay a weekly fee for all of her children, due to them being here full-timeAt this time, she was only responsible for paying a parent fee for her son, before summer camp started due to him being here full-time and the fees that are subsidized by the state of Virginia did not cover our full tuitionOnce her girls were out of school for the Summer, she would also have to pay a parent fee for them too, due to them being in our care full-timeThis conversation was had to her as a Courtesy that her payments would significantly increase during summer campShe said "ok," and stated she would see if she could "figure something out." This conversation took place months before our summer camp started. In May, the claimant had informed me that her older children would not be attending summer camp program due to the cost, and she had registered them a t rec-ac, a summer camp that is held by the county. She asked if they would be able to come to our facility every afternoon after their rec-pac was over for the day, she was informed that we were unable to accommodate that. She said "that was fine, she was just asking, and she wasn't even sure that the subsidy wold even pay multiple places at the same time for care." We did confirm that the children would be returning 8/28/17, for before and after school care at the start of the school year. The last day of attendance for all students who would not be attending our summer camp program was friday 6/23/17; they were able to return for the school year on Monday 8/28/17, which started a new school year. Her younger child, preschooler, was set to continue care at our facility. We start transitioning our children at the beginning for June to their next classroom. During this transition time, the youngest child made several references about a new school he was going to. The parent was notified of these references and stated " she did not know why he was saying that and that he was not going to a new school she would speak to him about it that evening." I then told her he might have just been referencing the new classroom he was transitioning to, but I wanted to confirm with her because the classroom he was in was full and we had a wait list of other families that wanted to join our facility and if she was going to dis-enroll him I was going to offer the spot to another family". Again, she said no. On June 28, 2017, the claimant was informed of a behavior issue that we were having with her child. She decided on that day that was going to withdraw care from our facility. We require a week notice for all students that withdraw from our facility, because she received subsidy from the state, we allowed her to leave with only day notice without supplying the weeks of additional payment which is stated in our handbook, the claimant received on separate occasionsThe claimant also stated that she did not register them at our facility, but this was in fact done on 2/27/17, when care was reinstated to our programThe claimant states that we "broke our own policies when we refunded her an activity fee/registration fee when she withdrew her son in June." This is false; we did not refund her an activity/registration feeShe was refunded an activity fee onlyRegistration fees and activity fees are completely separateShe was refunded an activity fee because her son would no longer be attending and/or participating in any on the activities we were doing for the summerThe activity fees that we charge our families are paid directly to our vendors for each child that participates in the activity, since her child was no longer going to participate, that money was refunded to her because it was entitled to herNowhere in our policy, does it state activity fees are non-refundableIt does however state the activities are charged twice a yearShe states in her claim that a "registration cannot be kept if a registration didn't occur or if does not clearly state so." Registration was paid for the children on 6/1/17, by the state of VirginiaThe state sent out this notice on 5/15/in a "Child Care Purchase of Service Order' with all children listed as well as the registration fee that was to be paid to our facility on 6/1/The claimant was well aware that the registration was going to be paid to our facility, because they were in fact registered at the facilityThe claimants abrupt decision to completely withdraw care from our facility does not entitle them to a refund of a registration fee, as stated in our handbookFurthermore, we contacted the claimant's specialist on 9/28/regarding this matter, which they also told the claimant, registration is paid by the state once a year onlyShe decided to transfer schools so it was her responsibility to pay registration to the school she was attendingNow, the claimant is seeking payment for our company to pay registration fees to her children's new SchoolThe claimant has filed a claim against us for money that is not due to them and has threatened to Contact "* ** *** ***" news with these allegations, if we do not refund money that is not due to them