I attend the School of Rock for approximately 2 months and decided that it wasn’t the right group for me. There were some definitive factors which lead me to stop attending. Here are the pros and cons about the School of Rock:
1. Parking… the parking at the School of Rock cannot accommodate more than 7 – 9 people at one time. So if you’re unable to find a parking spot on the School of Rock’s premises, you’ll have to find parking elsewhere. This can become problematic when most of the parking on the street is taken up or unavailable. Eight times out of ten, the available parking spaces on the street are a couple hundred meters to a quarter mile away. I cannot confirm but I was told parking on the street was free for up to an hour.
2. Cost Per Lesson… The cost per lesson is on the high end of reasonable. The lessons should be longer given the amount of money you will pay per lesson.
3. Quality of Lesson… I don’t have anything negative to say about the lessons. The instructors, at least the one I was under, understand and know how to play their instruments and are able to teach effectively.
4. Schedule… Scheduling is and isn’t a problem at the School of Rock. I was able to schedule the lessons when it suited my personal schedule. The instructor I was assigned to was available on certain days of the week so ultimately, flexibility is dependent on your instructors and who you’re paired with. Although, I didn’t enjoy this experience at the School of Rock due to their rigid policy that is enforced when your unable to make it to the lesson the day of. See reason number #5.
5. Pre-Payments… Scheduling and this topic go hand and hand. The School of Rock will ask that you pay up front for all (4) lessons for the month. One would expect to have (4) lessons since they paid for (4) lessons but this is unfortunately not the case. Accident or not, you will pay the full amount of money despite not having attended a lesson the day of that lesson.
Conclusion:
I don’t have a problem with the instructors, in fact I believe the School of Rock has a good team of musicians capable of teaching students how to have a good foundation where they could learn to become better on their own, but the policy of the School of Rock is rather unforgiving.
The type of treatment of customers who pay for a service and get nothing in return is rather silly and I would hope for the School of Rock’s sake that I’m just a special case scenario. The reasons why this is the case are petty and unconvincing in my opinion and I don’t care enough to fight about it. The School of Rock will not show mercy on this topic.
Truly, I would have stayed longer had the School of Rock not been so stingy about their own policy.
You can most definitely find a private instructor who will not penalize you for missing a lesson, charges a similar amount of money per lesson and is as skillful as the level of those at School of Rock for more time elsewhere.
