My child attended class at Studio B Dance Academy with one of their instructors for an entire…read moreschool year without incident. However, at the end of the year our experience with Studio B Dance Academy's owner, Brandi Walker, was disgraceful. When a concern was brought to her attention, I was met with immediate belligerence and disrespect. I decided to give her grace and another opportunity for a discussion to remedy the situation that she'd created, but she continued on with her lack of decorum, dismissive attitude, and absolute unprofessionalism. In fact, after I advised her that we would no longer be attending her dance studio after the recital was over, she tried to extort me and threatened to not allow my child to dance in a performance that my child had already been invited to, accepted invitation to, paid all dues for, learned dances for (on her own) before practices started, and attended every rehearsal for. Brandi continued with her threatening, vengeful tactics when she decided to hold an impromptu "closed rehearsal" the next week by turning off the monitor in the lobby knowing that I always stay to watch my daughter at EVERY practice. I was able to confirm with one of Brandi's instructors that a "closed rehearsal" for their recital is NOT a normal occurrence and that the monitor in the lobby is NEVER turned off. When Brandi realized her vindictive behavior had been exposed, she became belligerent and unhinged, yet again. She continued with her vile behavior by yelling at me and slamming the studio door so hard that the latch on the door popped through to the other side of the double doors. I'm not the only parent who has experienced her unprofessional, disrespectful behavior either. I witnessed her berating another parent over the phone the first night of recital rehearsal as well. To which Brandi thought was appropriate to address myself and another parent in the lobby at the time, telling us all about that student/parent and how she'd been "having problems with them". So this seems to be the norm for her. Brandi Walker has proven, on multiple occasions, to be aggressive, unprofessional, disrespectful, and quite frankly, an unstable individual. It's truly a sad state of affairs when a "trusted teacher" becomes a 6 year old child's "first look" at a bully. For someone who was the president of JAES (Junior Auxiliary of the Eastern Shore), "founded by a group of women who had the desire to help the less fortunate and wanted to make a real difference in the lives of the children in our community", I would expect her to possess a more refined character and better discernment of appropriate behavior, not just as an adult, but as a business owner, and one working with children and parents on a regular basis at that. Unfortunately, that is not the case with Brandi Walker. Just BEWARE. Everything is great when you sign up for classes and invest your time and money into her business, but if you ever have and decide to address a concern with her, her insolence takes center stage. I've honestly never, in my life, experienced such a crazed business owner, and certainly not one working with children. I wouldn't recommend such a low caliber, unhinged dance studio/business owner to anyone. Do yourself and your child a favor and find a more respectable and competent dance studio to invest in. This isn't the one.
