Berlitz Learning Center

I enrolled my kids in the afterschool mandarin program. The location is great since I work half a block away. In the beginning, the instructor was on time and showed up each week. As time went on, the teacher was often late or didn’t show up at all. A new teacher was hired and the same issues persisted.
Often my kids would show up at class only to be told that there was no class that day because the teacher couldn’t make it. This was due to miscommunication on the Berlitz side (emailing me the day of and not calling me to make sure I knew class was cancelled). Luckily, I was always able to accommodate these unexpected cancellations because of the proximity of my work.
After the second teacher was absent several times, Berlitz told me that they were training a new teacher. At no point did they tell me that class was on hold. Instead, my kids showed up the following week and at that point there was still no teacher. I was told class would resume the following week. The following week there was still no teacher and once again they didn’t notify me.
When I asked for a refund on the current session, Berlitz then told me they had failed to bill me for an entire session of classes (even though their system seemed to be missing the last payment I had paid). It seems the number of lessons vs. contract credits didn’t square up. I asked if they could just bill the credit card that they had on file, and they said they weren’t allowed to have a card on file. This was confusing to me because this is how they invoiced me for the last 3 sessions — they automatically charged the credit card they had on file.
Bottom line: if you are looking for a reliable after school language program for kids, this isn’t it. Quite a disappointment since my husband and I had taken classes at Berliltz when we lived in Hong Kong and the program was very reliable.

Looks like the management changed and there was a re-​organization because it seems like they’re on top of their game (psst! to other reviewer)! Had my consultation and my first class this week. So excited to go to class and learn. The method really works!

Want to find out what sort of experience other parents have had with this after-​school program offered at Laurel Elementary (Menlo Park).
Thanks!