Your experience with Shuren
Hi! We signed up for Shuren this upcoming school year but some recent things seem off compared to our existing day care. We were wondering what your recent experience has been? Is this normal? Why does things seem less transparent than it could be? Does it get better?
- Hard to read school calendar making it difficult to pin down holidays, days off, and when the school day ends. Also confusing after care language, making it hard to figure out the total cost for after care. We have spent time figuring this out.
- Strange payment schedules, options, and fees designed for parents to pay the year upfront. Even if you select monthly payments, payments are front loaded through January. Payments also starts two months before school starts (e.g. in June when school starts in August).
- A strict contract have the parents on the hook to pay for the full year’s tuition.
Jun 25, 2024
Parent Replies
We had our child at Shu Ren for one year and didn’t stay at the school despite being quite interested in the elementary school program. It’s true that you pay for the entire school year about 5-6 months before it ends so you basically start paying months before the year starts in late-August and “finish” paying the academic year by like December before they finish that academic year.
From what I recall, there wasn’t an absurd amount of time off / holidays for the academic year. The summer program leaves a lot to be desired.
Also, yes you’re on the hook for the whole year and they will not refund any part of your year’s tuition even if you have to leave through some unforeseen circumstance.
The school has gone through a lot of changes recently including expansion and then a rapid reversal of that expansion. The most recent Berkeley site director has been let go it seems and I think that’s a positive change as she was not a particularly warm or thoughtful person in the few times we’ve interacted with her, or (more importantly in my mind) when she interacted with my child, given that these were young children (2-5 years old).
In general, the teaching staff is very good. But we still elected to send our second child to a different school (Little Lamb) despite increasing our commute time threefold because of the expense and we wanted a much warmer environment for our child. The aftercare program is not educational (largely just the kids playing outside) and quite expensive, given how high the tuition already is and that the outdoor play structures are old and run down.
Hi! We have one child at Shuren and one at a different private school, and can say definitively that the Shuren payment schedule is in line with our other school.
Hi, we've been at Shu Ren for preschool for three years and are planning to be there for a few more. Yes, their calendar and payment systems are super annoying and hard to figure out, and have changed every year we've been there. Beware that they sometimes charge you incorrectly on the payment platform (although if you do need to contact an actual person, they are usually helpful and will fix it). Their after-care options have also changed every year and been annoying to figure out.
Also beware that you need to register for one-off care throughout the year like Thanksgiving week camp, Lunar NY week camp, etc. (unless they change that this year, lol.) Make sure to register for these as soon as registration opens so you get a spot, if you need it.
Their contract is much more binding than other lower-key daycare options like in-home daycare, but this seems standard for schools and larger daycare centers.
Despite these annoyances, we're very happy with the instruction at Shu Ren and plan to do preschool for all three of our kids there. They have been through a lot of transitions in the three years we've been there and this year has been especially rough, with lots of changes in leadership, but our daughters are both thriving there so I don't focus on that. We've had our three kids in basically every type of daycare situation possible and they all have pros, cons, and annoyances.
We were at Shuren for 2 years and also left despite being interested in the elementary school program. If I had known the school was owned by a Private Equity firm, we would not have pursued it. The marketing was drastically different from our experience. As far as communication goes, the school's policy seems to be to not put anything in writing. Injury reports? Lol, they don't do that.
You seem concerned about scheduling so one more thing to flag, you will probably learn about random activities like a class performance that's during work hours less than a week before it happens.
Good luck.
We left shu ren after 2 months for our K child. This was in pandemic and we appreciated they were in person but it was a bad fit for us. They seem great for highly gifted and well behaved children but are not equipped for kids with special needs (our kid was definitely behind in motor and reading skills). We were not on hook for tuition fortunately but I do think thats common for contracts