Everyone seems nice at the beginning, and the teenagers that teach the summer camps are great. But you need to be very wary of the ""Zealot-like"" owner and her daughters. They take themselves waaaaaay too seriously at this place. \r
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Make sure to watch through the observation window. They can often be observed grabbing kids by the arms roughly and yanking them around on the dance floor if they aren't in the exact location they want them in. Often the child ends up crying. I was also there one day when a child was roughly brought outside the studio door just sobbing and the instructor (one of the owner's daughters) told the mom that she ""just couldn't work with the child"". This was all because this 4-year old was scared to roll over in the tumbling class. I understand discipline for ""serious"" dance students, but come on, we are talking about pre-schoolers here. How about some kindness with a dose of patience thrown in for good measure??? \r
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Oh....almost forgot, they don't tell you this upfront, but they have some weird obsession with cover-ups. All kids, regardless of what the temperature is outside (think 100+ degrees with humidity in the TX summer), have to wear a cover-up to class. They don't tell you about this little rule of theirs until after you are signed up and have already paid your fees - and it is not in any of their documentation. But get this....they only have to wear it when they walk from your car into the studio. Now what is the point of this? What exactly are we covering up? Pre-schoolers in dance clothes - come on.... Funny thing - after we had been there for a week, they rolled out a collection of ""cover-ups"" that they had made/decorated themselves for sale for $20 - $30 each. Hmmmmm.... \r
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After we left the studio I ran into 2 other mothers that had left the studio over the years for exactly the same reasons we did. Not at all surprised though, because a leopard doesn't ever change its spots.
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