Camelot Academy of Arts, Science and Technology

Our children attended Camelot Academy for three years, which ended up being one year too long. The first two years, they were provided with a solid education and the school showed real potential. However, there was a rapid decline in the academics within the third year.
There were a few things that contributed to this downturn with Camelot Academy. For example, the administration decided to replace some of their best, most experienced faculty with people who appeared to be newly graduated from college with no teaching or child experience. The level of academics and students’ performances dropped dramatically. One of the most shocking problems with this was that some classes received absolutely no writing instruction throughout the school year despite parent complaints.
Additionally, the administrators chose to focus their time and energy on developing a dual immersion (English/​Chinese) program, without regard for or communication with the existing families. Although this had been discussed as a long term plan, it was implemented in a hasty manner with little preparation. One of the casualties of this was the individualized learning opportunities. In the past, each student needing advancement or remediation for single subjects had been provided with individualized learning to meet their needs. This was completely dropped. In fact, with the loss of more faculty during this past year, classes needed to be combined without proper preparation. When this occurred, there was, again, a noticeable change in the level of academics.
It is unfortunate to see Camelot Academy take such a turn. We had been very hopeful about their plans and development for the future.

I don’t even know where to begin. As a parent we look diligently for the perfect school for our children. This is not it. I was shocked by the dishonesty in administration. I could never get a straight answer from either of them. New school? We were told for several years that they bought another campus and that the school would be moving. Parents are now being told it’s out of their hands and with the investors. How can a school with only 39 students from ages 3 – 17 survive. Each grade has 2 – 4 students. There was no communication whatsoever. We never knew what was happening at the school. Their website was never accurate and always out of date. Their communication site was always having problems. I would like to say my child at least got some sort of an education, but that is not the case. My child never had one workbook. I rarely saw any work. And yet hours and hours of homework. Most of the teachers had no teaching experience at all. I don’t even know what the owners experience was. I feel i completely wasted my child’s time and my money.

So far so good with the class. My Daughter loves it, but odd strip mall type facility associated with the school. My one complaint is the cleanliness. No room for the dancers to store their stuff so on the floor it goes. I don’t like the fact that every room is segregated. At least at OCPAA where my daughter attends Musical Theatre and Jazz, you can view their room easily and watch. Not so much here except the main dance (ballet) room. We won’t return simply because getting here involves too many intersections/​stop lights coming from Anaheim Hills/​Placentia/​Yorba Linda area. Takes approx. 20 – 30 min.

We have our daughter taking the musical theater classes at CAAST, and we highly recommend it. Emily has learned a lot, and it is in a safe, supportive environment. It is very clear that the goal of CAAST is to nurture the children involved and help grow their talents.

We sent our two kids to CAAST for 3 years. Last year my son completed 8^th grade and we did not feel compelled to continue and moved both kids back to public schools.
The pros — The student population was small, so they COULD provide more attention to each student. My kids enjoyed being there. My son said he learned a lot. Some school material was advanced, perhaps even overwhelming (pushing advanced high school subjects on middle schooler). There’s a year-​end competition which provided nice challenges for the students to work through together.
The flip side — The name of the school implied its focus on arts, science and technology within their curriculum. I will say more about performing arts later, but academically, I saw no focus on art excellence. My kids were in other private school before, and they came home with amazing paint work and wood /​clay work from time to time. The artwork in CAAST came back as a pile at end of school year and looked insignificant. The kids took group singing and instrument (violin) and they held a concert every semester — only when my son went to the public school for orchestra did he realize how slow the pace was at CAAST, despite the class size. With science, fewer than 10 kids from grade 6 to 12 were in the same class. For 3 years, my son was studying Biology, and mostly Biology. I don’t know how the upper grade kids prepared for Physics and Chemistry. My son received an A every semester. He was told to try the SAT Biology last year, he received a B-​level score. While respectable, he said he cramped for the test with the preparation book, and the school only covered ¹⁄₃ of the test material in 3 years. I don’t deny he could have learned a lot, but standard test score was a main part of getting into colleges and we weren’t sure if CAAST was preparing them properly. Again, most classes have the grade 6 — 12 setup — with Math, the teacher left halfway during second year and the principal took over. He went on to teach the third year. During our years there, my son was battling sleepiness and Math was the first class of the day. Each student studied at his /​her own pace, which could be viewed at as good or bad, but for most kids of that age group who weren’t exactly focusing on ‘challenging oneself’, the lack of peers of their same grade and in a ‘self-​study’, uninteresting environment simply did not excite /​challenge the kids to perform. My son’s Math grade fell, but we did not want to press on it since he dozed off easily. Looking back, it appeared he hit a period of growth spurt and had a hormone issue (he no longer dozed off at high school), but the CAAST class setting was not helping despite their best effort. As for technology, aside from the year-​end challenges, the computer courses (web design, game design) did not create anything to show off with. Perhaps we could count the after-​school robotics course. After school courses were extra, and we enrolled my son in it. We were told the students would be prepped and sent out to compete. 3 years we were there, they were never sent to one. Earlier there was a college-​looking kid teaching robotics. Later, the principal was teaching. If they weren’t sent out to compete, how could we tell they were any good?
CAAST has a performing art campus (a dance studio) where enrollment of the dance classes, plays are all extra. The studio is several miles away from the school campus, posing commuting challenges. I am not saying these courses shouldn’t cost extra, but the promotional material for the school combined everything they offered and it’s not obvious. The promotional material also mentioned after school tutoring, it’s provided to any students, not just CAAST, with a fee. Their official web site had not been updated for a year.
The ‘neutral’ points — the teachers were a hit-​and-​miss; there were some real nice and good teachers, and at times, the not-​so-​good ones, got replaced. The school taught Latin in the curriculum year after year — a skill difficult for a parent to judge its usefulness. The school premise was small and there was no sports program, despite what’s advertised. Earlier, they showcased their web portal (mibinders) as a great tool for kids to learn (online studying) and socialize (like Facebook), but the online study eventually focused on paid online courses and not for CAAST academic courses; The social side was chaotic and difficult to navigate. We were also told they were moving campus — after 2 years of speculations, we still had little clue where and when it’s going to be. At one gathering, we were told students from China would be coming here to the new campus to study. That had to be one of the strangest things I heard.
Lastly, at end of each school year kids took the PSAT test. The 2^nd and 3^rd year results were held back despite we asked many times. The lack of ways to compare academic performance with other schools is unacceptable.
We no doubt have fond memories — We were just expecting more.

My children have been coming here for three years now. This is such a great studio for your kids! The staff is warm and friendly. It’s small and intimate so your children will have a lot of specialized attention. The teachers are excellent and care about your child improving in a positive atmosphere. Some of the classes offered are ballet, jazz, lyrical, tap, glee and musical theater. Because the studio is small, parents are asked to help, if possible, at major performances but that’s not been a problem with me. I would highly recommend this studio to anyone wanting to put their child into a dance class. What a positive, nurturing and loving place for a child to learn to creatively express themselves!

My daughter studied at this school for dance for a long time. They have accomodated for us many special circumstances and strive to work with everyone to ensure the learning experience is positive. They geniunly have the best interest of the students and hope to promote positive learning experience. The teachers at the studio are top rated. The owners are very innovative in their approach to learning and have helped many to excell. It is a small studio so it needs everyone’s help and corporation especially when big venue/​performances are in being put on. I would highly recommend people to check the place out.