Crossing Borders Group

Had to re-post my review as my previous one was deleted.
Jul 8th, 2016

The CB Rice Village location has been a great experience for our children. I want to give special recognition to Ms. Flor, Ms. Isabella, Ms. Emilia, Ms. Gladys, Ms. Elena and Ms. Fefe for their amazing, dedicated care of our children. Each day we know they're safe, happy, active and most importantly learning appropriate developmental skills in Spanish. The school keeps the holiday celebrations and enrichment activities growing. We appreciate the staff and the personalization of the school. - Chris and Claire Woll
Dec 16th, 2015

We were so excited to send our 18 month old son to a language immersion school, however there was nothing redeeming at the school other than the second language being taught. There is a very high teacher and student turnover - because of this, you can't always know who will be there when you drop your child off, which is too confusing to children this age. In addition, the student: teacher ratio is too high- there is no way for 2 teachers to keep up with 18 children at the 18-23 month age group. The teachers were very kind and caring, but clearly overworked. In addition, communication between the school and the parents is incredibly poor and unprofessional. Often, when you pick your child up, there is no properly filled out report of how the child did that day regarding eating lunch, etc and the afternoon teachers wouldn't know. My reports would say "ate all" but the entire lunch would be in the bag. The last week we were enrolled in the school was really the deciding factor in our taking our child out. We requested to stop the catered lunch that was provided by the school, however when I talked with the administrators, they told me they needed a 30 day notice for this. They subsequently stopped the lunch without letting me know and my toddler son didn't have lunch one day and nobody bothered to tell me! In fact, the owner of the school told me it wasn't a big deal "because he wasn't hungry." In that email that I sent her, I did let her know very politely that I was displeased about this situation and her solution was that we should not return to the school after that week. Loved the teachers, did not care for the school.
Sep 24th, 2016

My 5-year-old son was in Crossing Borders for one year in preschool. He was in the Spanish program (there were several language programs). My first language is Spanish, and I have always spoken to him in Spanish, but he would only speak to me in English. After one year, my son only speaks to me in Spanish. His Spanish is fluent but not perfect. However, I am confident it will improve over time since we now communicate in Spanish. I need to recognize that his teacher would constantly encourage him to speak in Spanish with his classmates. He learned in Spanish numbers 0-100, Spanish alphabet, geometric forms and colors. I also noticed that some of his classmates learned a lot over one year as well, and their parents were not Spanish speakers. I would admit that the daycare is not perfect. I believe there is a management-parent communication gap. I did not always know what special activities were taken place. If I did, it was the last minute. However, they implemented email distribution list toward the end. I hope that helps. Crossing Borders is a tenant, and the church owns the space. Consequently, there is no an actual phone number for the daycare. The director’s cell phone number is the contact number that parents get. I was never completely comfortable with this arrangement. However, my son was older, and I worked very close to the daycare. It was my impression that teachers worked long hours and were not very well paid. For instance, crossing borders closes for 2 weeks in December, and tuition doesn’t change. I believe teachers don’t get paid for those two weeks.
Jun 25th, 2016

Do not take your children to this school. Do not do business with this company. I have been weighing writing this review for 2 months and I have decided I will NOT stay quiet. To the teachers and staff still there: don't believe the lies told about you. At times of debilitating stress like this, you must not be isolated. Isolation will only make the stress worse. I worked for this company for 3 months as my daughter attended their school. I loved working with the teachers at Rice Village, taking part in the daily activities with them and getting to know each student. With that said, to me it is not a business but a life's passion. I say this because I encouraged them to do so so much with Rice Village, involving the parents, doing culture events, socials, etc. It should be a school where teachers are supported, encouraged, and enabled to succeed by the organization’s culture. The best organizations flourish by supporting their employees, not by threatening them. I feel that the teachers need more support, trust, and that the morale needs a boost... A powerful administration doesn't operate to control at all. To the contrary, power is strength and giving that strength to others. What I saw was underpaid, overworked teachers, constantly being threatened and reprimanded, and/or fired. The turn over is unprecedented. The teachers are afraid to even speak up for themselves when they are mistreated by the administration. They receive not one single sick day, not one single day of paid vacation and no benefits, though the school still receives full tuition during months with a week or longer of holidays (no school days). Their is one lady who works at the Rice Village location doing "Marketing" and also helps run the school. She has no background in education and her poor rapport with the teachers is proof enough of that. This school uses their money to OPEN MORE SCHOOLS. If you could run just ONE school well, then maybe you could consider opening another school. As for their corporate location, they run a foreign language school for adults, teens, and children. The program is sub-par at best. Just more underpaid teachers and under-served students and staff. The marketing lady at Rice Village harassed my friend whose children also attended their school and tried to convince her to say I was offering Crossing Borders services outside of the company to fill my own pockets to get me fired and to have my daughter removed from the school mid-week. Needless to say, they investigated the claims and found them to be false and called to apologize to my friend but I never received such a call. As for how I ended up working there, my daughter attended their school for a little over a year. She had a wonderful teacher. I worked hard to keep her there as I am a single mother and helped her teacher as much as possible with planning and organizing the classroom when I could. Then came the time when I could no longer afford it. I was offered a job with this company in their corporate location and promised a healthy salary (which was far from the true pay grade I earned while working there). Long story short, they run their school by intimidating and threatening their teachers to get what they want. I hope this is a call to other mistreated parents and employees to stand up to this company and a wake up call to the company itself and a cause for change.
Dec 3rd, 2015