Kwong Kow Chinese School

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This is my first year at Kwok Kow Chinese summer school. It was strongly recommended by a pre-school teacher, who sends many of her graduates there. The price were very inexpensive ($900 for 8 weeks, 9am-6pm), but I send my 7 yrs old child there because they have violin lesson weekly, which is usually unheard of in other summer program. And base on the flyer I saw, I thought my child would be challenge in different ways, learning Chinese, Math and English. I also thought they teach martial art. I learned that there were NO martial art classes until school started. (I signed my child up in May base on the information they have on a flyer). Also, I don't know if it was new management or what, the summer program was very unorganized, and staff were mostly high school/college kids with little teaching background. To name a few of my disappointments:

1. Class activities schedule was not available until the first day of school. We had no ideas of what day is swimming and what day is violin lesson. Weekly field trip is THE SAME for 8 weeks: Boston common every Wednesday and to the Boston Public Library on Friday. Moreover, there was NO BACK UP educational activities (or art & crafts) if it is a rain date. Kids just watch a Disney movie in the morning (and again in the afternoon time).

2. Movie is EVERYDAY from 4:30-6pm. If I knew their activity schedule ahead of time and knew that they would be watching a movie daily and on rain day morning. My child is in the second week and he watched at least 5 Disney movies already.

3. Receptionist was mean, ignorant, unfriendly and not helpful. When I called prior to summer school start to get an idea of the activities schedule, the receptionist told me "just drop off your kid at the door" and kept brushing me off. It was not until I insisted to speak to someone (the new principle in this case) who knows what is going on, that I got an idea of "may be they would have swimming/violin on Mon/Tue".

4. Teachers/Teachers assistant assumed my child "has a fever" and called me to pick up my child, WITHOUT checking his temperature with a thermometer. That was the Monday after the long weekend. My child complained of tummy ache and sore throat (from playing too hard over the weekend). An experienced teacher felt my child’s head with his forearm and concluded he had a fever (not asking and knowing that he just ran 3 flights of stairs to get to his classroom). I left work immediately after receiving the call. When I got there, my child was playful, in good spirit and had NO FEVER! I took my child home anyway, since they already instill the idea to my child that mom will send him home.

5. You must pay tuition in full upon registration and they are non-refundable, although what they advertised is NOT what you get.

6. Swimming is 12:30-1:30pm on Tuesday. Kwok Kow provides lunch, but NOT until after they swam-at 2pm!! Classroom rule was NO FOOD FROM HOME. So, let your child starve! It was not until I made complains many times that they allow snack from home and they are changing swimming to after lunch.

In conclusion, I send my child there thinking he would have a memorable summer learning different activities. I regret sending him to Kwok Kwo instead of where he went last year. May be I set my expectation too high. I am very disappointed at Kwok Kwo. In the future, I rather spend more money to have my child go to a more organized, meaningful, sensible summer program. My hope is that they would improve in the remaining summer weeks. So think thrice before sending your child there.