Complaint Review: Argo Navis School - Los Angeles California

Argo Navis School is a for-profit elementary and middle school. Most private educational schools are non-profits that have an independent board that oversees operations and the finances. Argo's owners in order to maintain ultimate control over the school and use the tuition funds for their own benefit created a for profit private school. 

The owners have no other job or income and they have four children that also attend the school. The school has an "advisory board" that has no insight to the finances of the company. Because this is a closely held company owned by two individuals, all the tuition money goes to them in a black box to use as they see fit. It also results in them cutting corners on services, education, safety, salaries so that they can profit. 

The tuition for Argo Navis is about $34K a year. There are also "extras" that the parents can pay for. Dance- $1200 per person, Costa Rica trip- about $7K per person, Scuba trip- $3K per person,Gymnastics, Private music lessons etc. Guess who participates in all of the activities for free- the owners and their four kids. When you add it all up, that's about a $200K skim of funds each year!

In addition, when there are particularly good field trips offered for some classes but not all, all of the owners kids attend regardless of age. Last fall, only the older class was learning about Hamilton and was set to attend the musical with the school. However, all of the owners children, including their two 9 year olds and one 6 year old who were not in that class, got to attend- off the back of the hard earned tuition money of the parent community. 

What's worse is the "fundraisers!" They fundraise money for a FOR-PROFIT company, putting more money into their pockets. The owners will tell you of course that they use the money responsibly and they pay themselves a salary, and all the money goes back to the school, but good luck getting any evidence of that.

Here's what we have evidence of-

1. A half built pool in the parking lot for at least year because the school didn't have funds to finish it,

2. A shut down kitchen by the health department that they are trying to re-build to code and fundraise for of course!

3. High teacher turn over- there are only 8 full time teachers at the elementary/middle school each year and in 2022 school year 6 left and 2023 school year 2 left.

4. They hire parents as administrative staff so they can pay them as little as possible and give them a tuition benefit.  When a highly valued assistant principal asked for a raise because she was getting paid so little for her role, they offered for her to live in the school- yes, that is right. To actually live in an elementary school so she could "save" money. 

5. They don't pay their teachers enough under CA state law to qualify as exempt employees (about $65K) so they have to abide by non-exempt employment laws which require specific meal breaks and staff breaks. Because there is so little staff, the children are left unattended at times to meet these requirements. Plus, certain field trips are all day, so there is no way they would be in compliance.

6. The school is all day and year round, except, if you add up the actual required academic instructional time you only get one extra day of academic instruciton required by the law. This means when they tell parents they can take their kids out of school at any time for vacation or camps, they are not telling them that their kid is missing vasts amount of required instructional time. 

7. They forge all of the report cards to tell kids they are mastering subjects and tell each parent that their kid is above grade level; however, after all my kids left the school, one was significantly behind in math and had to do summer school to catch up, another had several undiagnosed learning issues that were not presented to us. One student matriculated and tested in at the new school in the lowest level math class and Spanish 1- the equivalent of having learned no Spanish while coming from a purported "Spanish immersion" school!

8. When certain members of the "board" expressed concerns of all of these financial constraint issues and suggest the school stop adding grades (I.e. growing which adds more costs), the owners told the board that it would be a good financial decision but that her oldest daughter needed a middle school so the school had to grow and add a middle school. 

Honestly, I could go on and on. The worst perhaps is the constant lying and gaslighting from the owners. Even when you complain and tell them that the teachers are worried the kids aren't getting enough class time, they lie to you and say it's not an issue and we are making it up! If you try and complain on Yelp or Google, they immediately report your review and get it removed and then have other parents and employees contact you and try and convince you that what you know is wrong. Check out the "not recommend reviews" under Yelp to get a full picture of the school.

My strong recommendation is to stay far, far from this place and don't let them take your money for their own purpose.