WATCH: With no notice a northwest location of Sylvan Learning Centres has closed indefinitely, and as Jill Croteau reports, frustrated parents are now out thousands of dollars.
CALGARY – Parents who had pre-paid for their children to be tutored at a northwest Calgary Sylvan Learning Centre were shocked to find the doors locked and blinds drawn Thursday night.
“Last night we were kind of in shock and devastated because we didn’t know what was going to happen with our investment,” Jason Georgy told Global News on Friday.
Georgy said he’d pre-paid for 120 hours of tutoring for his eight-year-old son, Keenan, at the 8060 Silver Springs Boulevard N.W. location. The future third-grader had only used 35 hours, which Georgy says leaves him more than $4,000 short in outstanding lessons.
“My son had one of his tutorial sessions yesterday at 9:30 a.m. and everything seemed normal,” said Georgy. “So last night we did a drive-by the location to confirm, and sure enough, the blinds were all closed and there was paper on the door…and a notice stating that they’re sorry for the inconvenience but the location is closed.”
Georgy said he received an email Thursday night informing him that the northwest Calgary Sylvan Learning Centre will be “closing its doors and going out of business as of Thursday, June 9, 2015.” (This was presumably meant to read July 9, since Georgy’s son had attended tutoring Thursday morning).
“The continuous decrease in student enrollment and increasing overhead expenses has resulted in steadily declining revenues to a point the business can no longer sustain. We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience this causes,” said the email.
Georgy said his son has loved attending the centre since February.
“We viewed going to Sylvan as kind of like a journey through his educational career. So it wasn’t just a three-month fix for us, we had intentions of him going year-round for many years.”
He said he contacted Sylvan Learning headquarters in the U.S. and was told the closure was under investigation and communication would be “forthcoming.”
“They indicated during the conversation about transferring to another location and that the hours would be honoured, but they kind of have to do the investigation first,” he said.
There are five other Sylvan Learning Centre locations in the Calgary area: two in the southeast, two in the southwest and one in the northeast. All remained open as of Friday afternoon.
A Sylvan Learning Centre employee at the 17 Avenue S.W. location said the Airdrie location had also been closed Thursday night, as it was under the same ownership as the northwest Calgary location. Calls to the Airdrie location were met with a voice message that said, “We are either away from the phone or in a meeting with a parent.” A voicemail left Friday afternoon was not immediately returned.
A Global News request to Sylvan Learning Centre’s corporate office was not immediately answered.
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