Job Discussion Forums

[kaddman]

If you consider enrolling your own children in a so-called "American School", Futures American Schools (FAS) should not be on your list. I'd like to share our experience with this particular school. My family and I decided to relocate to Egypt and we considered an affordable school that offers an American system. We came across FAS in Nasr City, 8th zone and the kids went through enrollment testing and everything went well. A month later my oldest who was in 9th grade told me that they were teaching her stuff she had in 5th and 6th grade. One day my 5 year old came home with a pen stab wound next to his eye, and within the same week he came with a stab by his lower lip. My wife decided to watch his class and volunteered as a teacher's helper. By the end of the second day she told me what was going on and how weak the teacher was. She had no control of the KG2 classroom. So we decided to pull him out of the school after the same teacher said, in the front of the Principal, that my son needs to toughen up with the kids and stand up for himself. I was shocked to hear such stupid reply from her. By the way she was an Egyptian who lived in IL, USA and claimed that she taught there, which I challenge. Anyway to make the long story short, we decided to pull him out of that school. A month later we had to return back to the States and we explained things to the school management and everything was ok until I went to the cashier to get my refund. They told me that Ms Dina (the owner) has to sign for that. It took at least 3 weeks just to get to see her and she refused to refund my money and said no refund because you decided to pull out the kids. I said I had to pull them out for serious and strong reasons. She said no refund and after long debate, I walked out empty handed and she still owes us about 17000 Egyptian pounds. My conclusion is, FAS has very low standards academically and some of the teachers are not even certified (they offered my wife a job without finishing her BS degree). Believe it. They won't refund your money for any reason, which is completely against their contract rules. Basically they don't even follow their own rules. If it were up to me, I'd shut down such school. Feel free to ask me any questions. I support my statement 100%. Good luck to those looking for an American school in Egypt. kaddman

[Sekhmet]

Kaddman - firstly, I'm sorry for your troubles at that school, but I have to point something out to people reading this board - there are obviously 2 different FAS's in Egypt. I have no experience with the one in Nasr City, but everything I have heard and witnessed points to FAS in Alexandria being a very good school (if a little stingy on their wages for locally-hired foreign teachers!!). So, I felt I had to point that out, just in case!
Sekhmet