UPDATE on Apr 29:
It took Page 6 (SIX!!!) weeks to reply to…read moremy email, only to say that she was sorry she'd taken "many days" (read: 44 days to be exact) to consider our situation, but her stance was still the same. She even acknowledged that the wording of her time-off policy was unclear.
I wrote back 2 days later to let her know that we would come back in April, take May & June off, and complete our year commitment in July.
She wrote back the next day, letting me know she consulted with other studio owners and made the decision to release us from our yearlong contract and reimburse me for the months remaining on it.
I've attached our correspondence in March.
I did not ask to be released from our contract for several reasons:
a) I wanted my daughter to stick to her commitment to ballet, as she had promised when we paid nearly $1k for the year -- as a parent, we were deprived of developing her perseverance.
b) We felt we should honor the contract, regardless of whether we agreed with it.
c) My daughter liked her instructor (not Page), has many friends, and made many others in the months that she attended Page Academy. By ending our contract, Page also abruptly ended several relationships that my daughter worked hard to build.
I still do not agree with Page's time-off policy. If I may make a recommendation (as I imagine Page will read this review one day), I think time-off should be allowed 4 weeks at a time wherever those 4 weeks fall. As it stands now, students take the calendar month off (from the 1st to the 30th/31st). But if a student takes December or May off, they receive fewer weeks off than other possible months (and some months have 5 weeks, depending on the day of the lesson). It would make more sense to offer a flexible 4 weeks off (therefore, 4 lessons off) that falls any time of the month. Since Page offers classes 48 weeks (12 x 4) during the year, it is fairer to let the customer choose which 4 weeks (aka month) they can take off. Instead, the current policy forces the student to take a "month" off when there may only 2 lessons held during that time.
I hope I've illustrated the inflexibility, poor service & communication, and lack of consideration & care that I experienced during our year as a paying customer at Page Academy. Never should a paying customer have to wait 48 hours, much less 6 weeks (that is 1052 hours!), for a response. Never have I received such awful service. Absolutely horrendous.
And please keep in mind that my daughter is 5 years old and has no idea any of this has happened. While I would have preferred that she finish the year, as she promised us and we promised Page Academy, I'm grateful my daughter hasn't asked about why she's no longer taking ballet. I'm not sure how I'd tell her that we were "released from our contract" (the closest definition I can think of is that we were kicked out or booted from the Academy). It's just really sad and disappointing all around -- all because of THEIR poorly-worded policies and time off that we requested that happen to fall during a "month" with only 2 lessons scheduled + inflexibility on prolonging my daughter's course so that her remaining 2 months could be back-to-back instead of piecemeal.