South Walton Academy

"My daughter loves this school. Great teachers! Caring loving towards my daughter. They had a zoo day all parents could join with kids, Christmas shows, dances, and so much more. Most importantly, they are concerned about my daughter's education, health, and safety. Every interaction I had with Jennifer was pleasant and very professional. She replies to all my emails. Ms. Olivia and Ms. Kira Morrison are two of the best teachers. My daughter is in kindergarten now, and we are both excited to enroll her for another year. I read some of these past comments and couldn't believe what happened. My experience has been nothing but the best with all staff, other parents, and the cutest kids ever. This was my daughter's 1st year, and I'm glad I sent her to SWA. People have bad days, and mistakes can be made. We are all humans... like I said, my experiences have been 5 stars. One hand I want to keep this a hidden treasure and not say anything on the other this could help so many parents make a great school choice for their child. They take Step Up scholarships, too. This is a program that helps parents pay the tuition if the families and children qualify. Check it out! Everyone has always been good to me here."

"Let me start off by saying we (my wife and I) never make a bad review on a business, I only take time to make good ones.But, with a recent experience with South Walton Academy, myself nor my wife can let this one go and feel our community needs to know what they are dealing with here. This is our story and I will update as we navigate through this to have SWA make this right. With that being said, please read this and know what you are dealing with when considering this school. In Feb we enrolled both of our children in the SWA summer camp. They are 8(special needs) and 2.5 years old. We originally signed up for two months then COVID happened and there was an unknown factor of summer camp proceeding. We emailed in April asking if there were any updates and what will happen. Again so much unknown so we did not go forward with the second month until we knew more. We were told via email correspondence we were paid up full for the month of June and never heard back until May 9th with an email of Summer Camp Updates and precautions they were taking. June 1st our children were so excited to go to camp. They had their new camp shoes and clothes on...they have been stuck at home for two months so you should have seen how excited they were. When we pulled up, the owner walked to our car which I thought was odd because she was not opening the door to let the kids out. She said “I don’t have your kids on the list, there must be a mix up”. We asked what are you talking about? We paid nearly $1700 for summer camp, how is that a mix up and how can that be dismissed is my question? She began to plea her case about COVID like we and so many others have not experienced change and how busy they’ve been and brushed us off .I called three times and Jennifer said they un-enrolled us. When I asked why, she stated that’s what your email “seemed” like then blatantly hung up on me as I was asking questions to get to the bottom of this and she had zero legit answers. Obviously and apparent as why she hung up because she knows they made a mistake but won’t own up to it. The email is in front of me SWA and nowhere did we say un-enroll our kids and you know that’s a fact. Anyone that would like proof of that I would gladly send a copy to. The truth is the truth and wrong is wrong. Now we left with two crying children, a big inconvenience of plans for this month as we rearranged our entire schedules for this, dished out and lost money and left high and dry. To further this, my wife went into our local Moms page in SRB and made a post begging for help for any open summer camp programs made never once disclosing SWA’s name or bashing them. Within minutes, her post was deleted and she was blocked out of a community page which she loves so much and has made all my friends here on and may I add, why? Because the three admins of this page, Cheri Burns, Amy Mcgregor & Jennifer Filippone all work for SWA. Interesting. Childish. Unprofessional and I can keep going what this displays of their character. How can people of this nature run a local private school and try to run our community page too. This is discrimination in my opinion and flat out being a bully. Please keep your feelers our when considering this school! *Edit to add 8/9/2020*Since, we have NOT received a reimbursement from SWA, and gave them plenty of time to make things right. We disputed the funds that that SWA illegally stole from us with our bank and have to date received almost all of our funds back. SWA NEVER tried to make this matter right they tried to make it go away. It is a shame that people to this nature think they can take peoples money and get away with it! As a matter of fact, they (SWA) have threatened our family with having an attorney email us and TRY to scare us about speaking on this matter now as well as have threatened to now send us to collections. Stand up people, huh. SWA is about money, not children. My advice, skip looking into this school and save yourself from the traumatic experience our entire family has been through with them."

"This school has been amazing!! My son has been to a few schools in the area before and this was a perfect fit for his season in life. The teachers provide ample communication and support. My son has some developmental delays and the staff and teachers (and other parents!!) have been such a system of support - encouraging when we hit valleys and celebrated when we hit high points. So appreciative and thankful for the hand holding I so desperately needed. We are looking forward to therapy services that are offered on site and all teachers are ESE certified and have great communication with each other. This is important to me since it’s a fairly smaller school but they all know how to care for my son and work together to provide excellent one one one and small group care - academically and emotionally for each student."

"Where to begin. My son has been attending this school for two years now after I first met the owner through Early Steps. My son has grown so much with thanks to the amazing staff at this school. It’s our home "

"Please save your time and money, as this is a company that does NOT have INTEGRITY with its clients, as they remove negative posts from their Facebook page, so that you cannot see their true colors. When a company un-enrolls children WITHOUT prior notice, leaving children crying (that are expecting to have wonderful first day of summer camp), does not return calls, hangs up on PAID IN FULL customers, and turns off/removes reviews... This is definitely NOT the place you want to leave your children!!! What has happened to Customer Service in this day an age??? Let alone... Common sense!!!"