Complaint Review: Alcuin School - Dallas Texas

The experience we had with this school was disgraceful. This is not a Montessori school; this is a business that treats children like disposable commodities. Our 2-year-old and 4-year-old sons were enrolled for Fall 2019. Neither child had ever attended school before.

On the first day of school, our 4-year-old was crying quite loudly on the bench outside where students sit before entering the classroom. One of the administrators, Peggy Larson, stormed over to where I was sitting next to him, had the nerve to grab his arm and then try to ask me to leave immediately.

It was obvious she cared nothing about the children, but was there instead to keep up appearances. Needless to say, I did not leave and opted instead to advocate for my son. From that point on our family was a target.

Our other son’s teacher, Patricia Dominguez, suddenly decided that our two-year-old "moved around too much” and was "requiring more attention than other toddlers,” a perfect opportunity for her boss, Peggy Larson, to make the decision to dismiss our son from the community / permanently kick him out.

Coincidentally, toddler enrollment for Fall 2019 was suffering at this school (I believe there were only 8 or 9 toddlers in the class out of a possible 12 which hurts the school’s checkbook), so Peggy Larson and Patricia Dominguez decided that the most convenient expulsion date for our 2-year-old son would be mid-November, just in time for new toddlers to age into their program and cover costs (they need to be 18-months old to enter the toddler classroom).

Our sons were granted admission at three other prestigious private schools in Dallas for 2019-2020 so this cost them a year of missed education and cost our family over $20k in tuition & damages. Our 4-year-old son was so affected by his little brother’s expulsion that he began refusing to go back (to put it lightly).

After all the work we had put into getting him happily adjusted with leaving the home and going to school, he was then forced to endure this major setback on the whim of a cold-hearted administrator. He was completely confused as to why his little brother wasn’t getting dropped off anymore (he used to walk him to his classroom every morning and pick him up after with me).

This was a complete disruption in our children’s lives and in our family’s life in general. We moved into a new house in order to be closer to the school, from our beautiful city-center condo into a somewhat remote, residential neighborhood we would never have chosen otherwise.

What’s worse is the school (Peggy Larson and Patricia Dominguez) absolutely knew in September that we were planning to move for the sole purpose of our children attending Alcuin for the next few years, if not until graduation. We contacted them on more than one occasion to check in and see how the kids were doing in their classes and to let them know of the impending move.

Not once were we warned or told that expulsion was on the table or that "dismissal” was even an option. Patricia Dominguez was suffering some health issues and was absent from her toddler classroom for two weeks during October. It was clear to us that she wanted to make her days at work as easy as possible in order to offset whatever health problems she was going through.

Perhaps our active, happy, healthy little two-year-old boy was not her favorite student, but that’s no excuse to "dismiss” him from a community. He’s two years old for Heaven’s sake. If the school truly cared about the wellbeing of the children they could’ve simply let our child finish out the school year and not ask him back the following year.

That would have at least given our family the time & resources needed to make other arrangements and would not have caused as much emotional distress on both of our children, let alone the huge financial setback it caused for our family. This school does not care about children or families and honestly it feels more like a cult on the campus than a friendly scholastic environment.

One morning while walking my children to class, the headmaster (Walter Sorensen) inquired about my handbag, asking me what the writing on my bag meant? It was completely inappropriate. This man had never so much as said Hello to me let alone made any attempt at conversation before.

Why was he looking closely enough at my small, silver Stella McCartney handbag to be able to read the tiny colorful writing on the side of it? (It says "always open” by the way, which I’m assuming means always shopping, so nothing crazy). It just felt bizarre. Do most headmasters comment on the accessories or attire of the moms? Most likely not.

Another mom of a child attending this school told me that one of the teachers told her to stop teaching her child (at home) and instead "work on his soul.” What kind of teacher says this to another mother? Needless to say, she was insulted.

A few other parents have since come forward and told us that they have endured similar situations at Alcuin but declined to speak out for fear of social repercussions and also due to embarrassment. I want to use this platform to encourage other parents wronged by this school to speak out in order to prevent Alcuin from doing these types of things to families in the future.

No family should ever have to endure such discrimination, fraud, breach of contract, and unjustified expulsion that we have endured. No family or child should ever have to go through what we went through. It’s sad because this whole fiasco could have been prevented had Alcuin simply abided by the core values on which it prides itself in its handbook and adhered to Montessori standards required by the American Montessori Society.