Expensive daycare - Read the fine prints!
The expensive daycare......
My daughter started there about a year and a half ago, all excited about coding after her first experience with "scratch" at school.. Months passed and while she seemed to enjoy it, her progress was unclear, the report cards not showing anything tangible. When the new manager Ben F came in , I expressed that concern to him, we went through the progress report on his system and basically confirmed that nearly no progress had been achieved. Ben confessed that with previous management there was no real work done towards the curriculum goals and kids were left doing whatever they wanted to do by the senseis. He told he was here to change that. We agreed to give it one more month trial now that things were changing. After a month there was some little progress but my daughter was now losing interest stating.that she was most of the time left alone doing nothing when stuck on a task. It was time to take the decision to continue or not, I asked Ben how long it is expected to progress through the belts. Even though each kid is different, the first two belts would take approx a year. Looking at the belt board only a couple of kids have reached the 3rd level. This facility has been opened for several years so there should be kids in higher belts, this shows that the retention is about a year. My conclusion is that like my daughter, the students lose interest in about that timeframe, the time to realize that code Ninja is no more than an expensive daycare, definitely not worth the $185 per month.
That is where come the fine prints......
So I decided to cancel. My automatic payments were drawn on the 4 th of each month. On the 7th of April I informed Ben of the decision to cancel, Ben told me that there was a 30 days notice which I accepted. My daughter went to the next class and that was the end of it. Today 05/12 looking at the bank statement I saw that another automatic payment of full amount was drawn on 04 May. I passed by Code Ninja and saw Ben to tell him the cancellation seemed not to have been taken into account. Ben said that it was normal because the 30 days of the cancellation were not yet reached on the 4th of may and that is why the payment was done. I said I understood and asked it to be prorated for 3 days which would complete the 30 day notice. Ben advised that it had to be paid in full and that was the policy. When asked to do something he replied he could not, when told that since he was the manager I would assume he could indeed do something, then he replied he was not the owner, and in a very formal tone repeated that it was the way it was and nothing could be done......
In a nutshell, behind the facade of a friendly structure that seems to be a great start to get your kid into coding, is an expensive day care where the kids will barely progress. Code Ninja will squeeze every penny then can until you realize it is a just a big waste.
My recommendation if you consider it for your kid: Strong Pass.... read more
