Top-20 of music camp in Bell

While I am not sure that my daughter actually learned anything she didn’t already know prior to the camp, just being around other young musicians is I think a positive thing.  Of the two music teachers, she said that Todd was a friendly teacher and very supportive.  However, of the other teacher, Anthony, she said “he was kind of nice, but not really.” Her feelings were hurt when she asked him to write down the chords for one of the songs they’d started creating (so that she could practice in the hotel room) and he responded in a rude tone “do you even know how to play the guitar?” and didn’t write them down.  While Chloe has been playing the piano for three years, she only 6 months ago started the guitar, and she’s still learning.  Cut the kid a break.

But the thing that really upsets me about this camp is what one of the other employees did (and I am leaving the employees name out in the hope that this review will lead to self-refection and positive changes in their future).  For people who are considering sending their child to one of these camps, FYI, they offer to the get the kids a lunch for $10 a day, and I suggest you always send your child with that exact amount.  On the first day of camp, I sent my daughter with two $5’s for lunch, and a $20 for emergency.  At lunch, she was unable to locate one of the $5’s (which she later realized had simply tightly pocketed itself within the other $5).  She went to the employee as they were the person in charge of getting the lunches, and told them that she couldn’t find a $5, but that she had a $20.  The employee said that was fine, and then asked my daughter if she would either like her $10 change, or would she rather have the employee keep it and apply it towards the next day’s lunch.  My daughter said the employee could apply it to next day’s lunch.  But, the next day when it came time for lunch, the employee approached my daughter and asked her for $10.  My daughter reminded the employee that she had given her a $20 bill the day before, and that when the employee had told her she could either give her change or apply it to the following day’s lunch, that my daughter had told the employee to apply it to the following day.  But, the employee’s response was that they would never do that; that if my daughter had given the employee a $20, they would just give her change, and that my daughter had to give the employee another $10 if she wanted lunch.  Unfortunately, the initial $20 transaction had taken place in the small office that the employee sits in, with just the two of them present, so there was nobody to witness what the employee did.  Obviously, my daughter wanted to eat, so she gave the employee another $10.  This left my daughter believing that one of two things had occurred.  She thought either the employee honestly didn’t remember that they’d told my daughter they’d apply to the next day the $10 dollars change owed her (which my daughter found hard to believe because in her words “there were only 8 kids and — is too young to have memory problems”) OR that the employee stole $10 from her.

This was a one week, Mon-Fri camp, and I found about the problem Wednesday morning before dropping her off. I did not feel comfortable addressing this with the employee and then leaving my daughter there. Suffice it to say, I made sure she had exact change for the remaining three lunches. On Friday, I had to send her with ten $1’s and told her to make sure the employee counted them out in front of her. I asked my daughter what she learned from the experience with the employee. She said that she learned you can never trust anybody, especially if you don’t know them. It stinks that my daughter had to learn that from an adult at a music school.