I would strongly caution parents before paying thousands of dollars in tuition to Little Bee. Our experience was deeply disappointing, both in how our child's transition was handled and in how our concerns were treated once we had paid.
Immediately before submitting approximately $4,450 in tuition, I specifically asked in writing and in person whether I could stay in the room with our child for 5-10 minutes during his first few drop-offs. I explained exactly why: we knew from previous experience that an abrupt separation at the door was extremely difficult for him, while a gradual transition had worked well. Little Bee responded that stepping inside with him was "totally fine." We understood that response to mean that the transition we had just described would be accommodated, and we paid the tuition in reliance on that agreement.
Once they had our payment, the tone changed. Instead of implementing the transition approach we had specifically raised before enrolling, we were repeatedly told why Little Bee's preferred separation method was better and that they were the experts, not we. We were either not let in or rushed out after a few seconds the one or two times that we were able to cross the threshold. Had they simply told us before taking our $4,450 that they could not accommodate, we could have made an informed decision and simply not enrolled. Instead, they chose to tell us what we wanted to hear, but then proceeded to ignore our request entirely.
We nevertheless tried their approach. The result was exactly what we had been concerned about: rather than becoming increasingly comfortable with drop-off, our child became exponentially more distressed about going to the point where he would start horrifically crying and screaming as soon as he recognized he was in their general vicinity and even threw up once from the stress. As his parents, watching his distress exponentially increase rather than slowly decrease or at least stay the same mattered enormously because it was extremely uncharacteristic of our child. Our concerns were not met with understanding.
Instead, every time I attempted to ask basic questions at drop-off and pickup I felt as though any exchange was an unwelcome intrusion. Interactions were routinely cut short within seconds. The door would close before I could meaningfully discuss a concern, or pickup would happen while a teacher was already leaving.
We eventually tried escalating our concerns to management. Before we withdrew, we spoke with the studio manager twice. Both conversations were cut short and our concerns were once again pretty much mocked and brushed aside. We were directed back to the separation policy - the same policy I had read before enrolling and the very reason I had specifically raised our transition request before paying.
At that point we had lost confidence in the environment and were no longer comfortable leaving our child there. This wasn't because we suddenly stopped needing childcare. Withdrawing created an immediate childcare problem for us and required us to arrange and pay for replacement care.
What bothers me most is that we identified our concern before enrolling, specifically asked how it would be handled immediately before paying thousands of dollars, understood Little Bee's response as accommodating our request, and then had a materially different experience once we had paid. When that experience began going badly, we tried to communicate about it and came away feeling dismissed rather than heard.
If you are considering Little Bee, particularly if your child needs any accommodations at all, think twice before enrolling here -- they may promise it but the tone will change as soon as the tuition check clears.
They are refusing to give us a refund for our unused tuition, which is pretty much the entire semester, even though they are not going to be providing any service for us for the next three months and we only attended for 2 weeks. We thought that was a bizarre stance for a place that claims to have the best interest of the child at heart. read more
