Little Otter Swim School — Attraction in Charlotte

Pros: Teachers are Hit or Miss, and a Good teacher helps a-lot. Good location if in Matthews.

Cons: Poor Management/ Overall Culture, Questionable Business Practices, Absentee Owners, Ineffective Teaching Results, More of a "Take your Money" factory vibe rather than a kid-centric school vibe.

Management is very entitled, and inexperienced when it comes to operating in a professional environment or with Children. Attitude isn't driven or inspired to help kids, everyone is just clocking in and doing the minimum to collect a paycheck.

Sherri has a poor, unprofessional and immature attitude, and the culture flows from the top down. Absentee owners are not hands on, rarely attend the school, nor focused on improving the school or the culture for the benefit of the children.

Stuart/ rest of management are very young, inexperienced, and have little training in childhood development, leading to a predictably toxic culture. Teachers are driven more by fear and compliance to arbitrary rules, rather than focusing on best interests of child and teaching swimming.

Curriculum is NOT very age appropriate, thoughtful or teaching centric, just photocopied from a generic manual and applied by inexperienced kids. Not the place to spend money to learn to actually swim.

The Automated billing system is suspiciously error prone, compounded by human error. You have to watch your credit card statement like a hawk, as overcharging is inevitable. Correcting false charges are not met with a polite apology, but resistance and unprofessional-ism.

Very High Parent Turnover! There are exceptions, but this is a place that's designed to lure you in, and once there your kid is a just a cog in the money factory.

Owners need to recruit some real management rather than cheapest kids they can find, and refocus the school around the student first, rather than focusing on maximizing short term profits/ expanding into other areas. I fear for all the hapless Huntersville families who will give this inept business money.

Beware of massive "review inflation" of this place, look to 4 star or lower "non-plastic" reviews to get unbiased perspectives.

Bottom Line: This is Dollar Store Quality and Service at Department Store Prices...Much better places out there to send...

This is somewhat nostalgic for me as I have a long history with Little Otter. I signed my son up for swim lessons when he was six months old. At this age the requirement is the parents are in the pool with the babies and you go through a series of stations getting the kids use to water and comfortable. As the kids mature and progress the levels progress as does the difficulty of the class.

Little Otter is a great place to get kids acclimated to water and how to handle themselves in water. They teach safety skills and practice accidental fall in's and basic swimming skills. Once kids reach the 7-8 yo mark they seem to outgrow what Little Otter has to offer. My son stayed in the program and progressed through all of the levels and then it seemed a struggle for them to teach him past their final level.

I sadly left Little Otter and canceled our membership and we didn't get a note or thank you or any communication after almost eight years of patronage. I was disappointing as this is a small family owned business and we liked it because it seemed like everyone knew everyone. Regardless, I tell everyone this is a great place to get the foundation built for little ones but once they progress to learning the different strokes its...

I researched for a tad bit over a year before we began with the school. Our son will be 6 shortly and we have been thrilled with the school and he has been there since we were cleared by our doctor to have him in the water. He has thrived in the care of the teachers there and we love John and Lory Kirk. Its a phenomenal place for all kids to learn to swim and water safety. We swim year round as we feel it gives routine, more intense training and more thorough learning. Cannot begin to refer them highly enough for all they have given us over the years and for all that have been to our son - who has undergone open heart surgery and heart catheterizations while attending there, and the teachers are all so concerned with the kids and so on top of knowing each and their abilities and the families- its made our son do even better there! They invest in him, and he invests in them with his heart and working his hardest for them! Do not hesitate to put your little ones in their care... all are certified in CPR and the water quality and cleanliness is surpassed by nothing else in the...