Prestige Dance Institute Inc — Local services in Clayton

Not a fan. We enrolled our 2yr old in the Predance class. I was not told from the text chat I had with their office or on the description of the class from their website that parents are not allowed in the room when the dancers have class. I found this out when I got there and so did several other moms.

My daughter did not do well with this so I ended up sitting with her in the hallway trying to get her to acclimate while the door to the class was shut. This did not help with acclimating her. At one point she did start to walk into the class, but she slipped on the lip of the floor from the hallway that rise to the classroom (its really odd-looking) and got a big bruised lip. This set us back alot so we left. We felt really defeated.

So the next Monday's class comes and we tried again. I took time off work, got her home early, and pumped her up for dance class, but still we couldn't walk her into the classroom so we stood in the hallway with the door shut just trying to get her to acclimate. We tried again the following Monday, took time off work, really tried to curate the next couple of hours, and we showed up early to try to get her familiar with the waiting room. When we walked down the hallway the door to her classroom was open so we let her walk in. She did it! We were so excited! We were then immediately told that she couldn't be in there without a teacher.

I told the young teen that she is being supervised. I am right here and we've paid to literally just see the inside of this hallway for two weeks. To me, this would have been a really great opportunity for her to walk in and help us, help her.

At the end of the day, they just aren't accommodating in any fashion to kids that have a hard time acclimating. While I appreciated the time the receptionist took my daughter from me and walked her in the room, it really only made things worse. And everyone kept offering for us to do Mommy and Me classes. Those classes are at 10am on a Monday and I have a job. That just isn't realistic for a lot of moms.

This experience sucked and we are just really sad that nobody was willing to just help her ease into it.

Response:

Thank you for your response, but again this is summed up as “well, it just didn’t work out.” Instead it could have been, “Hey Hannah how about next Monday you come a little early and we will meet you in the room just before class to get her acclimated. We want to make this a better experience.” I am not the only parent that walked out of there with a crying child. As much as this was my experience, this is also feedback. Your structure does not work for all of your customer base. I was also not the only mom that was surprised when we were not allowed in the dance room with the kids. And I have searched the website, my portal, and my emails for any disclosure that parents are not allowed in the dance room and I have found nothing. Had this been explained to me, I would not have...

We really wanted to love this place... but alas, we don't!

The pricing is reasonable. The location is fair. Communication, for the most part, is good - although if you "Google search" their studio as "prestige dance institute schedule" and don't realize you're not on the "main" part of the webpage, you'll miss out on relevant information. This is why I didn't give a 1-star.

I never bothered to look at the "tabs" because I ASSumed that the information would be in the parent portal, which it is NOT (nor is it on the contract I signed), and wasn't made aware of the recital time or location until after we had already registered... They have chosen a location 66-70 miles away from their studio (depending on the route you select). It's a minimum of 76 miles from our house, and they expect the dancers to be there for rehearsal and the recital. That may work for some, but I don't know how anyone in their right mind thinks that students who are in school in the middle of May can be in Rocky Mount for a dance rehearsal and then go to school as well the next day. And then go back again for a recital on a Sunday. We're not missing church for dancing - the Lord comes first! So, in all we're expected to drive there on two separate days, making that a minimum of 304 miles, students are going to not be able to tend to homework or have an appropriate dinner, and then come home and go right to bed, in order to get as much sleep as they can... (as it's already an hour and twenty-minute drive, with NO traffic) Nah. That doesn't fly with us. And had I known this prior, I wouldn't have wasted our time, money, or gotten our child's hopes up.

Note, this isn't our first dance school, and we've been in the area for over a decade... No other school that we have been a part of ever went beyond downtown Raleigh for a rehearsal and recital

And for my mistake of not looking at those "tabs" - they gladly took the $30 registration fee and broke my kiddo's heart for dancing there. ...

My daughter did a trial class with Prestige the PreDance class. I loved how welcoming they were when we talked it. They escorted my daughter to her class and let the teacher know she was trying out the class. My daughter went with the instructor with no problem. As a parent I liked that my daughter felt comfortable to go with people she had never seen or knew. Also parents are able to look in on the class through a 2 way mirror. The instructor was great and there are two older students in the room with the instructor to help her. Love this!! The owner is excellent with communication a and responds timely. My daughter was registered the next day! Can't wait to start her dance journey and hope she loves it as much as I did...