 |  |  |  |  |
| For what it’s worth, here’s my story …. When I heard The Academy for Accelerated Studies was opening with Val teaching, I was so excited. I had known other families who had absolutely loved Val as a teacher. She seemed to be really great with the kids. In fact, I had not heard a bad thing about her. The original location was supposed to be on the East side of town. About two weeks before school was to start, we get a letter stating that they had a wonderful new location on the west side of town. I was furious! It was now a twenty minute drive to a location that I was NOT happy about. The neighborhood wasn’t the best and the playground was awful! But, with only two weeks before school starting, we didn’t have much choice. We decided to stick with our original decision. School started and things seemed to be going pretty well. Although I still worried about the playground. There was no fence and the slide was incredibly dangerous, especially for little kids. The restrooms were way down the hall from the classroom. The children were allowed to go by themselves and my child soon became afraid to go to the restroom, even having an accident in the classroom because of it. Val was there all day by herself with the children. She admitted to leaving the children out on the playground by themselves while she went to the restroom. While I didn’t like this fact, I somehow let it go, believing that it was worth it because my child was getting what he needed. Anyway, eventually, there was a big falling out between the owners of the school and Val. So, Val departed. So, here we were with no school for our children! Much of our tuition had already been paid to The Academy for Accelerated Studies, so we were out that money. Still believing in Val, a group of parents got behind her to help her open a new school. It often seemed that the parents were doing much more than Val to get the school opened, but again, we just wrote it off to the fact that Val had another job and had to earn money while the school was not open. One of the parents volunteered to do the accounting for Val. About four other parents were on a board that basically did everything for Val to get the school opened and started for the first several months. We painted, cleaned, shopped, and did just about everything necessary to get a school open in less than a month. It was very hard work and most of us dedicated every single weekend and most weeknights for several weeks to help her get her school open. Remember, our kids didn’t have a school! During this time, we parents really bonded and developed strong friendships. Always wanting to get more students, Val decided to have an open house. A board meeting was held to plan the event. Each of the parents volunteered to bring something to the open house to make it successful. The secretary printed off the minutes to the meeting, clearly stating what everyone was bringing. Well, the day of the event, we all show up and Val rudely states that she has taken care of everything. She seemed to be really angry that we had not met again so that she would understand exactly what everyone was bringing. We did not think it was necessary since it was all clearly written in the minutes. We were beginning to think that Val’s memory was non- existent. That day is when things really started going downhill. Even though she was so rude, we all showed up for the open house and stood behind her. We had been trying to hang in there with her, realizing that it is difficult and stressful to open a new school. Val just went on with things like nothing had ever happened. As far as the school day went, the students basically played unattended in the large room for a high percentage of the day. The academics did not pick up where the students had left off at the old school. She seemed to randomly pick worksheets of whatever she happened to have on hand. Quite frankly, Val was very stressed out most of the time. My child definitely picked up on that fact. As you probably know, many gifted students are keenly aware of other people’s emotions and often take on the emotions of others. Well, this is what happened with my child. He began to cry every morning when it was time to go to school. He said he hated school but couldn’t really tell me why. There were a couple of students who often got in trouble. He would say that he didn’t like those students. Well, I think it is because when those students got in trouble, Val would basically yell at all the students. She often sat the class down and disciplined them as a group even though my son and many others hadn’t done anything wrong. I chose to take him out the day that Val put my son in timeout for crying one morning. When she did this, my son stood up and yelled, “I hate school!” Believe me, Val did not like that. Her concern was that the other students would hear him and start saying that too. She didn’t really care about why my son was feeling the way he did. I still feel guilty about not recognizing how bad it was earlier than I did. Looking back, there were many red flags, but it was almost as if Val had sucked us in to believing that she was the only one who could teach our kids. I enrolled my son in a new school within a week. He cried when I dropped him off for the first couple weeks. But after that, he was absolutely fine. Things were so much smoother at the new school. We had no problems. It was so relaxing and such a relief not to have so many worries each day. No more drama!!! My son moved on to a new grade last August. The first couple of weeks, he cried again in the mornings. The teacher blamed it on his bad experience the previous year. After all, he had no idea what he was walking into when he went to a new classroom. I can say now though that he is totally over his experience with Val. He is now a very confident and well-adjusted child. I feel so sorry for any family who has to go through the experience of Val. It all looks good for a while. She uses smoke and mirrors to make everything sound so great. We even believe that it is for a while. But eventually, something happens and our eyes are opened. If you are reading this because you are thinking about enrolling your child with Val, please do not. It is not worth it! |
| Parent Story #1 - Submitted 6/17/09 |
 |  |  |  |  |  |
Quick Link to:
 |  |