I don't often leave bad reviews for businesses, but when the behavior of a preschool director /…read moreowner is this egregious, I feel compelled to share my experience.
TL;DR - Lack of communication, unprofessional behavior, petty conduct, limited to the school's director Adam. Teachers are great.
Long form:
We brought our daughter to Global Minds in November of 2021 and things were great right up until two weeks ago. She loved the school, made friends, and we got to know many of the parents. There were some problems, like their seeming inability to answer the phone or call us back, but we were willing to overlook that for the sake of our daughter's happiness and the fact that she was learning both Mandarin and Spanish. Also, we really liked how the parents all formed a tight-knit community.
Recently, my wife and I got COVID while traveling out of state (we are fully vaccinated). We attempted to contact Adam via phone on 3 separate occasions to inform him that our daughter would not be at school when we returned, and to receive guidance about what we needed to do before bringing her back. No one ever answered, nor did they return my calls. This lack of answering phone calls is a problem that goes back about six months, with only one of my phone calls being answered in all of that time. I was told multiple times by teachers that they would tell ownership about the problem.
Adam finally responded to an email my wife sent several days earlier, telling us that we could bring our daughter back to school when she was feeling well. No other guidance was provided beyond that. There was no mention of a need for a negative test prior to her return.
Current CDC guidelines are that children who are asymptomatic may return to school 5 days after exposure to someone who is COVID-positive. We waited until the 8th day to bring her back. She was never symptomatic.
In the absence of any guidance from Global Minds other than the email we received telling us to bring her back when she was feeling well, we followed CDC guidelines and brought our daughter back to school.
When I brought her back to school, I was told that I could not leave her there without a negative COVID test. I was a bit annoyed, since we had tried to call them multiple times for exactly this reason, and no one bothered to answer the phone or call us back. Adam's email also said nothing about a negative test. So, I said it was fine if she can't stay, but I was a bit annoyed that no one had bothered to give us any guidance before drop-off that morning. Chi (Adam's wife) called him and asked what to do, and he apparently said it was okay to leave my daughter there because Chi changed her mind and said it was fine.
Fifteen minutes later, Adam called me on my cell. His behavior on that phone call was beyond the pale. As an adult, I have never experienced the level of disrespect he showed me over the phone that day. I could barely get a word in, in fact I think I said maybe 5 words in total. When he was done chewing me out, he demanded that I pick my daughter up immediately, and then hung up on me. I couldn't believe it.
I went to the school and got my daughter and later sent Adam an email, addressing his disrespectful phone call, lack of guidance, sudden change of heart, and their habit of not answering phone calls or returning messages. One week later, Adam sent me an email and said he "found a lot of truth in my words" and offered to apologize in person the following day. I showed up to the school as he suggested, and was told by his wife that he was not there, nor was he planning to be there that day or the next. She had no idea about our meeting.
I emailed him again, and asked what happened, giving him the benefit of the doubt. He offered no apology. He said, "My intent was to be at school on Monday and Tuesday, but I had some showings of properties and some meetings that popped up that kept me away." Obviously, he has more important things to do than follow through on a meeting he proposed with a parent at his school.
Given the lack of communication, unprofessional conduct, and the fact that Adam seemed to be deliberately misleading me to waste my time, my wife and I made the extremely difficult to tear our daughter away from her school and friends, and enroll her elsewhere.
When I informed Adam that I would be removing my daughter from his school, I received an email response one week later that simply said, "Turd." See the attached screenshot.
This behavior is unbecoming any adult, let alone one who is entrusted with the care of children. I think it is important that anyone who is interested in taking their children to Global Minds know what they can expect from the director before enrolling.
I don't know if any other parents have had a negative experience with Adam. Before these events transpired, I would have said that everything at the school was great. But, given what I experienced with Adam, I wouldn't recommend Global Minds to anyone.
