Flex Academies

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kids were picky about activities before our school went to Flex. Now, they are not interested in any of their offerings. And I don't blame them. The classes are definitely more expensive.

Not a fan.

+1
Before Flex my kids used to do 1-2 activities each session. Now they do none. The offerings are really lame and they only work with a small number of providers so it's the same group every session.
I also dislike the management. They're pretty rude and charge you extras at every turn. Want to sign up an hour late? That'll cost you. If you sign up right before classes start you have to miss the first class even if the instructor is okay with your child attending.

Our FLEX charged a kid late registration but failed to pick him up for class (he was a kindergartner) even though he signed up 4 days before the class started, and the teacher had emailed the parents the day before class started because he was in the system. FLEX just never bothered to send a current roster to their aid on site, and the kid was literally missing for an hour w/ parents thinking he was at class. When FLEX was notified, their response was to say they were sorry that they didn't do a better job of telling parents that late registrations miss the first week of class. What? They had plenty of time to put the kids on the roster, and the charged the family and extra $20 for the late registration.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kids were picky about activities before our school went to Flex. Now, they are not interested in any of their offerings. And I don't blame them. The classes are definitely more expensive.

Not a fan.

+1
Before Flex my kids used to do 1-2 activities each session. Now they do none. The offerings are really lame and they only work with a small number of providers so it's the same group every session.
I also dislike the management. They're pretty rude and charge you extras at every turn. Want to sign up an hour late? That'll cost you. If you sign up right before classes start you have to miss the first class even if the instructor is okay with your child attending.

Our FLEX charged a kid late registration but failed to pick him up for class (he was a kindergartner) even though he signed up 4 days before the class started, and the teacher had emailed the parents the day before class started because he was in the system. FLEX just never bothered to send a current roster to their aid on site, and the kid was literally missing for an hour w/ parents thinking he was at class. When FLEX was notified, their response was to say they were sorry that they didn't do a better job of telling parents that late registrations miss the first week of class. What? They had plenty of time to put the kids on the roster, and the charged the family and extra $20 for the late registration.

That's horrible! Where was the kindergartener for the hour that he was missing?? I hope the parents got a full refund!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There are competitors to Flex. I don't remember the names but my child has a good friend from a different school and I looked through their catalogue once and it was a lot more interesting and much cheaper too!

Can you at least tell us the name of the school so we can look into it?

[Anonymous]

Why does Pyle use Flex? They have an active PTA.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here's your choice:
A parent volunteer or paid person to coordinate everything, take payments, manage insurance, building permits etc. OR you get a company like Flex to do all the work but they raise the prices because they need to get paid.

If you have someone willing to do the work, great. If not, Flex makes sense.

I could have written this! The only difference is that when I organized our school's, we handled the sign ups and processed the money. We also asked vendors to offer 2 scholarships if classes met a certain threshold. It was a fair amount of work but totally manageable. I like your model even better. Still, I worked really hard to make sure our classes were affordable, raised money for the PTA (we also offered parent-volunteer led clubs which made money for the PTA) and served FARMs kids. Now, the have two coordinators, but it is "too much work" so they brought on FLEX. One even said she didn't care if the offerings made money for the PTA or served FARMs kids as long as enrollment was easy and online. Now there are fewer classes, fewer FARMs kids served, exorbitant prices, no money for the PTA, lots of bureaucracy and no accountability.

I have volunteered in a wide variety of roles in my kids' schools for the past 12 years, and much of that time has been in coordinating after-school activities. In my experience, it is truly a lot of work to get enough parent or teacher volunteers for the range of activities the students and parents want, and takes constant time and attention and guidance and help. I have also brought in outside vendors when we can't get volunteers, and yes, they do a lot of the work -- but it is still a significant effort on my part. If there were an easier way to do it, I'd have gladly taken that route -- instead, the choice is either do the work or don't have the activity.

Flex would certainly add to the expense, but then parents who don't feel like volunteering have options for their kids that wouldn't be there. If they don't like the offerings, they need to get Flex to bring in things that the kids want -- and people who have used Flex tell me that this is what they will do. If they don't like the expense, they can volunteer to bring in individual vendors themselves. It seems unfair to blame Flex for costing more and offering less when the parents could solve this problem, they just appear to choose not to do so because it actually IS work to do Flex's job.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here's your choice:
A parent volunteer or paid person to coordinate everything, take payments, manage insurance, building permits etc. OR you get a company like Flex to do all the work but they raise the prices because they need to get paid.

If you have someone willing to do the work, great. If not, Flex makes sense.

I could have written this! The only difference is that when I organized our school's, we handled the sign ups and processed the money. We also asked vendors to offer 2 scholarships if classes met a certain threshold. It was a fair amount of work but totally manageable. I like your model even better. Still, I worked really hard to make sure our classes were affordable, raised money for the PTA (we also offered parent-volunteer led clubs which made money for the PTA) and served FARMs kids. Now, the have two coordinators, but it is "too much work" so they brought on FLEX. One even said she didn't care if the offerings made money for the PTA or served FARMs kids as long as enrollment was easy and online. Now there are fewer classes, fewer FARMs kids served, exorbitant prices, no money for the PTA, lots of bureaucracy and no accountability.

I have volunteered in a wide variety of roles in my kids' schools for the past 12 years, and much of that time has been in coordinating after-school activities. In my experience, it is truly a lot of work to get enough parent or teacher volunteers for the range of activities the students and parents want, and takes constant time and attention and guidance and help. I have also brought in outside vendors when we can't get volunteers, and yes, they do a lot of the work -- but it is still a significant effort on my part. If there were an easier way to do it, I'd have gladly taken that route -- instead, the choice is either do the work or don't have the activity.

Flex would certainly add to the expense, but then parents who don't feel like volunteering have options for their kids that wouldn't be there. If they don't like the offerings, they need to get Flex to bring in things that the kids want -- and people who have used Flex tell me that this is what they will do. If they don't like the expense, they can volunteer to bring in individual vendors themselves. It seems unfair to blame Flex for costing more and offering less when the parents could solve this problem, they just appear to choose not to do so because it actually IS work to do Flex's job.

In most of these cases, the activities vendors are already at the school offering after school classes - when flex takes over, the only thing that changes is those vendors become sub-contractors to FLEX and FLEX handles registration and creating flyers instead of the individual vendors. What else is FLEX doing, really?

[Anonymous]

+1 Flex makes it easier to register and that's about it. Everything else is overhead, and when they took over at our school they narrowed the choice of vendors significantly because our old vendors did not want to work with Flex.

Enrichment academies is another option. I've heard they are better and take less of a cut and the price of the activities is less expensive to parents.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here's your choice:
A parent volunteer or paid person to coordinate everything, take payments, manage insurance, building permits etc. OR you get a company like Flex to do all the work but they raise the prices because they need to get paid.

If you have someone willing to do the work, great. If not, Flex makes sense.

I could have written this! The only difference is that when I organized our school's, we handled the sign ups and processed the money. We also asked vendors to offer 2 scholarships if classes met a certain threshold. It was a fair amount of work but totally manageable. I like your model even better. Still, I worked really hard to make sure our classes were affordable, raised money for the PTA (we also offered parent-volunteer led clubs which made money for the PTA) and served FARMs kids. Now, the have two coordinators, but it is "too much work" so they brought on FLEX. One even said she didn't care if the offerings made money for the PTA or served FARMs kids as long as enrollment was easy and online. Now there are fewer classes, fewer FARMs kids served, exorbitant prices, no money for the PTA, lots of bureaucracy and no accountability.

I have volunteered in a wide variety of roles in my kids' schools for the past 12 years, and much of that time has been in coordinating after-school activities. In my experience, it is truly a lot of work to get enough parent or teacher volunteers for the range of activities the students and parents want, and takes constant time and attention and guidance and help. I have also brought in outside vendors when we can't get volunteers, and yes, they do a lot of the work -- but it is still a significant effort on my part. If there were an easier way to do it, I'd have gladly taken that route -- instead, the choice is either do the work or don't have the activity.

Flex would certainly add to the expense, but then parents who don't feel like volunteering have options for their kids that wouldn't be there. If they don't like the offerings, they need to get Flex to bring in things that the kids want -- and people who have used Flex tell me that this is what they will do. If they don't like the expense, they can volunteer to bring in individual vendors themselves. It seems unfair to blame Flex for costing more and offering less when the parents could solve this problem, they just appear to choose not to do so because it actually IS work to do Flex's job.

Not unfair at all. I am an individual vendor! FLEX makes my class exhorbitantly priced. I also used to coordinate. We had lots of local vendors and some parent led clubs. Vendors offered scholarships, volunteer led club income went to PTA. Yes, it was a fair amount of work, but I would have a few volunteers to help coordinate. It wasn't crazy. FLEX is a gigantic rip off.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here's your choice:
A parent volunteer or paid person to coordinate everything, take payments, manage insurance, building permits etc. OR you get a company like Flex to do all the work but they raise the prices because they need to get paid.

If you have someone willing to do the work, great. If not, Flex makes sense.

I could have written this! The only difference is that when I organized our school's, we handled the sign ups and processed the money. We also asked vendors to offer 2 scholarships if classes met a certain threshold. It was a fair amount of work but totally manageable. I like your model even better. Still, I worked really hard to make sure our classes were affordable, raised money for the PTA (we also offered parent-volunteer led clubs which made money for the PTA) and served FARMs kids. Now, the have two coordinators, but it is "too much work" so they brought on FLEX. One even said she didn't care if the offerings made money for the PTA or served FARMs kids as long as enrollment was easy and online. Now there are fewer classes, fewer FARMs kids served, exorbitant prices, no money for the PTA, lots of bureaucracy and no accountability.

I have volunteered in a wide variety of roles in my kids' schools for the past 12 years, and much of that time has been in coordinating after-school activities. In my experience, it is truly a lot of work to get enough parent or teacher volunteers for the range of activities the students and parents want, and takes constant time and attention and guidance and help. I have also brought in outside vendors when we can't get volunteers, and yes, they do a lot of the work -- but it is still a significant effort on my part. If there were an easier way to do it, I'd have gladly taken that route -- instead, the choice is either do the work or don't have the activity.

Flex would certainly add to the expense, but then parents who don't feel like volunteering have options for their kids that wouldn't be there. If they don't like the offerings, they need to get Flex to bring in things that the kids want -- and people who have used Flex tell me that this is what they will do. If they don't like the expense, they can volunteer to bring in individual vendors themselves. It seems unfair to blame Flex for costing more and offering less when the parents could solve this problem, they just appear to choose not to do so because it actually IS work to do Flex's job.

In most of these cases, the activities vendors are already at the school offering after school classes - when flex takes over, the only thing that changes is those vendors become sub-contractors to FLEX and FLEX handles registration and creating flyers instead of the individual vendors. What else is FLEX doing, really?

Yes, exactly!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kids were picky about activities before our school went to Flex. Now, they are not interested in any of their offerings. And I don't blame them. The classes are definitely more expensive.

Not a fan.

+1
Before Flex my kids used to do 1-2 activities each session. Now they do none. The offerings are really lame and they only work with a small number of providers so it's the same group every session.
I also dislike the management. They're pretty rude and charge you extras at every turn. Want to sign up an hour late? That'll cost you. If you sign up right before classes start you have to miss the first class even if the instructor is okay with your child attending.

Our FLEX charged a kid late registration but failed to pick him up for class (he was a kindergartner) even though he signed up 4 days before the class started, and the teacher had emailed the parents the day before class started because he was in the system. FLEX just never bothered to send a current roster to their aid on site, and the kid was literally missing for an hour w/ parents thinking he was at class. When FLEX was notified, their response was to say they were sorry that they didn't do a better job of telling parents that late registrations miss the first week of class. What? They had plenty of time to put the kids on the roster, and the charged the family and extra $20 for the late registration.

That's horrible! Where was the kindergartener for the hour that he was missing?? I hope the parents got a full refund!

Fortunately, they were signed up for after care, but it was a rainy day -- what if the kid had been dropped off at a bus stop alone in the rain? I don't think FLEX offered the family anything (other than a lecture to the fact that even though they paid an extra $20 in addition to inflated prices, even though the teacher had the kid on the roster days before the class, they were to only start the 2nd week of class). Insane.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here's your choice:
A parent volunteer or paid person to coordinate everything, take payments, manage insurance, building permits etc. OR you get a company like Flex to do all the work but they raise the prices because they need to get paid.

If you have someone willing to do the work, great. If not, Flex makes sense.

I could have written this! The only difference is that when I organized our school's, we handled the sign ups and processed the money. We also asked vendors to offer 2 scholarships if classes met a certain threshold. It was a fair amount of work but totally manageable. I like your model even better. Still, I worked really hard to make sure our classes were affordable, raised money for the PTA (we also offered parent-volunteer led clubs which made money for the PTA) and served FARMs kids. Now, the have two coordinators, but it is "too much work" so they brought on FLEX. One even said she didn't care if the offerings made money for the PTA or served FARMs kids as long as enrollment was easy and online. Now there are fewer classes, fewer FARMs kids served, exorbitant prices, no money for the PTA, lots of bureaucracy and no accountability.

I have volunteered in a wide variety of roles in my kids' schools for the past 12 years, and much of that time has been in coordinating after-school activities. In my experience, it is truly a lot of work to get enough parent or teacher volunteers for the range of activities the students and parents want, and takes constant time and attention and guidance and help. I have also brought in outside vendors when we can't get volunteers, and yes, they do a lot of the work -- but it is still a significant effort on my part. If there were an easier way to do it, I'd have gladly taken that route -- instead, the choice is either do the work or don't have the activity.

Flex would certainly add to the expense, but then parents who don't feel like volunteering have options for their kids that wouldn't be there. If they don't like the offerings, they need to get Flex to bring in things that the kids want -- and people who have used Flex tell me that this is what they will do. If they don't like the expense, they can volunteer to bring in individual vendors themselves. It seems unfair to blame Flex for costing more and offering less when the parents could solve this problem, they just appear to choose not to do so because it actually IS work to do Flex's job.

Not unfair at all. I am an individual vendor! FLEX makes my class exhorbitantly priced. I also used to coordinate. We had lots of local vendors and some parent led clubs. Vendors offered scholarships, volunteer led club income went to PTA. Yes, it was a fair amount of work, but I would have a few volunteers to help coordinate. It wasn't crazy. FLEX is a gigantic rip off.

It is difficult for vendors when their prices are raised because then fewer parents are likely to register for a class that is higher cost, which leads to reduced income on the part of the vendor who is often an individual or small/local business.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Not unfair at all. I am an individual vendor! FLEX makes my class exhorbitantly priced. I also used to coordinate. We had lots of local vendors and some parent led clubs. Vendors offered scholarships, volunteer led club income went to PTA. Yes, it was a fair amount of work, but I would have a few volunteers to help coordinate. It wasn't crazy. FLEX is a gigantic rip off.

This happened at our school where an activity price for an individual vendor went from something like 175 to 275 when Flex took over for the same number of sessions. The price had been the same for three years previously.

[Anonymous]

So what companies are competitors to FLEX!?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So what companies are competitors to FLEX!?

All enrichment management companies will increase prices of classes already offered at the school/tack on their own fees. Other management companies in the area include:

- Creative Enrichment
- Enrichment Matters
- Enrichment Academies Inc

You'd have to do a comparison to see how much prices would be raised with each one.

If your school is within the City of Rockville, you can have only the City of Rockville offer their classes at the school and that will serve a similar purpose. City of Rockville is subsidized so prices are lower per class in general than private vendors. I would imagine City of Gaithersburg or Montgomery County Dept of Recreation might be the same, but my child's school is in Rockville so that is the experience/knowledge I have.

Also, with Flex and all of these companies, there still has to be a PTA rep at the school working with Flex, so I really don't understand how it is hugely different to have a PTA volunteer who works with FLEX vs. a PTA volunteer who works with the individual vendors.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kids were picky about activities before our school went to Flex. Now, they are not interested in any of their offerings. And I don't blame them. The classes are definitely more expensive.

Not a fan.

+1
Before Flex my kids used to do 1-2 activities each session. Now they do none. The offerings are really lame and they only work with a small number of providers so it's the same group every session.
I also dislike the management. They're pretty rude and charge you extras at every turn. Want to sign up an hour late? That'll cost you. If you sign up right before classes start you have to miss the first class even if the instructor is okay with your child attending.

Our FLEX charged a kid late registration but failed to pick him up for class (he was a kindergartner) even though he signed up 4 days before the class started, and the teacher had emailed the parents the day before class started because he was in the system. FLEX just never bothered to send a current roster to their aid on site, and the kid was literally missing for an hour w/ parents thinking he was at class. When FLEX was notified, their response was to say they were sorry that they didn't do a better job of telling parents that late registrations miss the first week of class. What? They had plenty of time to put the kids on the roster, and the charged the family and extra $20 for the late registration.

That's horrible! Where was the kindergartener for the hour that he was missing?? I hope the parents got a full refund!

Fortunately, they were signed up for after care, but it was a rainy day -- what if the kid had been dropped off at a bus stop alone in the rain? I don't think FLEX offered the family anything (other than a lecture to the fact that even though they paid an extra $20 in addition to inflated prices, even though the teacher had the kid on the roster days before the class, they were to only start the 2nd week of class). Insane.

That is ridiculous! I saw on their website that they do not pro-rate if a family signs up late, either. Many other programs will provide a pro-rated fee if a child registers after the session has started. Once vendors are contracted with FLEX, they no longer have that flexibility.