***THIS REVIEW IS OF THE SUMMER SAINTS PROGRAM ONLY***
I would strongly encourage that no parent send their child to the Summer Saints Program. I can't speak to how the school year would have gone as a fall student at First Baptist Academy as we pulled out due to moving out of the area before the school year began. But I can say that the way the summer program is run gave us HUGE concerns going into the school year and had we not moved, we still would have considered leaving the school. (And we lost $1400 by telling them our daughter couldn't attend - would have been worth it!)
The set up:
PAYMENT:
You pay $175 / week - Fair price. You pay via check each week, and their accounting is not always up to speed, so a parent who is paid in full may receive a Late Notice - which has been set out on a table for all other parents to see. This is extremely unprofessional and poor form, both by giving parents a late notice when they are not late, and by displaying accounting information in a non-private manner.
DROP OFF:
There are students - generally girls, sometimes boys, in the pre-teen age range who will come out to your car to retrieve your kiddo in the morning. That's a nice perk.
FACILITY:
Filthy. Utterly, inexcusably dirty. They plate and eat on the floor - which seems to have never been cleaned. And there is no proper way they address health concerns. We have one child, lived in a downtown area apartment complex that has no other kids (literally), we have no pets, and I do not go to public playgrounds. So... my kid only gets kid sicknesses from school, ever. Within the FIRST two weeks at this place, she had pinkeye and ringworm which she could not have picked up anywhere else. As parents, we all know that the hygiene of the kids around our children is important, and that it's a reflection on the other parents and the facility's standards. When I realized she had pinkeye, which she's never had before, I called to inform the school because parents would need to know that a case had been reported. Later, when the ringworm happened, they said they don't report things like this due to HIPPA (WHAT? Primrose will post a sign that a case of communicable illness has been confirmed and to be alert.) or something. So, that's obviously why she got it, because whoever carried it to school in the first place didn't have it reported. The ringworm - Ugh - so gross.
They keep the lights off an unsettling amount of time and play movies all the time. And, until I complained, they were having electronic game time where kids who had iPads or Tablets could go into a DARK CLASSROOM WITH A BOY SUPERVISOR (AGED LATE TEENS TO EARLY 20'S PROBABLY) AND PLAY GAMES IN THE DARK EVERY AFTERNOON. I cannot stress how stupidly inappropriate this is on all fronts. My five year old daughter is not to go into a dark classroom with co-eds where the only "adult" supervision is a young, un-credentialed male. When I brought this up, I was assured that they boys had been given background checks and that the "church knew them" - that is beyond not good enough. I
I'm disgusted that a church establishment would have such poor judgment.
COMMUNICATION:
There is not a direct phone number you can call that will always be answered during Summer Saints. You may be given the director's desk phone or her cell phone, but they don't treat this properly like a school establishment where parents can always call the desk, and the phone will always be answered. That is unacceptable. Any establishment that takes children into their care should have a primary line of communication that is always answered.
STAFF:
The staff are one female director who is not there all day, another female administrator who is not there all day (they alternate so that neither of them have to) and then college or high school aged staff the majority of whom are young males. The gender of the staff wouldn't bother so much if it weren't for the administrators being scarce, the lights being off and everything else. The first week, my daughter said a boy (student) pinched her breast (she doesn't have any... but the area) and when I brought it to the director, she had NO CLUE - even though my daughter had told a teacher. Kids will be kids, but HELL NO.
The Summer Saints program is deplorable.
Every time I addressed an issue, I was given proper attention and lip service by proper authorities. This review, however, is due to the fact that, just because they were open and willing to discuss the issues with me, that doesn't change the fact that they clearly have a very poor program in place, don't care that having un-trained young males and young kids as their "teachers" isn't acceptable, they have no structure to their program, the kids play on the dirty floor all day, they sell candy to the kids every day, and kids are let in to dark rooms with 18 year old boys... It's just... none of it is okay and they should know better. read more
