Los Angeles School of Gymnastics

WARNING to any parent considering sending your child to LA School of Gymnastics. I have a 6 yr old who, for the past 3 years (since age 3), has been asking to take gymnastics classes. Last year, she took 4 classes at a different organization and enjoyed the classes very much. But that organization was further from out place than LASG. We signed her up for the gymnastics camp at LASG, after attending an open house in May. They were offering a discount for 5 weeks of camp. My daughter expressed such interest in gymnastics that we signed her up for the 5 week session. However, since second day of camp at LASG, my daughter kept crying every morning and pleaded with us not to send her to camp. She complained that a) the teachers were harsh and that b) her neck was hurting.

Mother works as a professional consultant with various schools and educational institutions and provides evaluations and recommendations regarding methods of teaching and developmentally appropriate treatment of children. We observed our daughter during summer camp and had several concerns regarding the quality of teaching and supervision of children at this organization:

1)Children are not given adequate stretching exercises prior to gymnastics routines.
2)Children are not provided with adequate modeling, instruction, and correction of mistakes when needed.
a.Our daughter was tilting her head and was putting all her weight on her head as she was doing hand stands and forward rolls, but was not given adequate instruction to correct these on multiple occasions that we were observing.
b.The pace at which the children were told to do these routines was much too fast for thoughtful observation and intervention by the instructor and for actual learning on the part of any child. The children, all of whom were beginners, were told to do all routines as a group of 16 or so were RUNNING around in a circle.
3)We also observed a male instructor who was supervising around 16 or so children all of whom were complete beginners around 5-6 years old. The instructor split the children into two groups: half of the children were doing activities on the balance beam, the other half were involved in another activity on the floor, at some distance from the bar. Children were on the bar, walking or hopping on the bar, while the instructor was at a distance with the other half of the group. At times, 2 or 3 children were on the bar at the same time.
4)When we picked up our child at 12:00 on 6-27-12, there was no adult present with the children upstairs. A teacher joined the group after 3 minutes or so that mother had been there and explained defensively that she was in charge without any questioning or prompting from mother.

We brought up these concerns with one of the managers and requested a refund after 5 days that our daughter had attended. The manager spoke in detail with us and immediately emailed us a refund request form. We appreciated this. We sent in the request form, with all the above information. The manager informed us that we should receive a refund in 5-10 business days. We did not receive a refund or any response to our request even after 14 business days. We contacted LASG and asked to speak with the above manger. The receptionist informed us that the manger was there, but repeatedly told us she could not come to the phone after passing on our information. We informed them that we would submit the content of our refund request (this information) to various internet sites in which LASG is mentioned.