Metropolitan School of the Arts

I want to pre-​face this review by stating that I do not work here nor receive any benefit for writing this review.
My son has been taking dance classes with Metropolitan since 2007 and I am very pleased with the quality of the instruction that he receives here. The cost to for the lessons here is certainly not cheap. In fact, there is another dance school close by my house that charges a cheaper rate; however, it seems like they are focusing more on competitive dancing team, which is not what we were looking for.
I also want to clarify some of the points made by the helicopter mom who gave this place a 1-​star review because the school would not revolve around her straight A’s children. If you sign your children up to start classes in fall, you are committed your children to classes for a full school year. You can also register in January as well if you don’t want to commit to a full school year. In fact, I did that for my son when he had to repeat a level for another year and still consider doing this again this year for another class that they suggested that he repeats (this might be shocking to some parents that they suggested such thing, but I am okay with that because it takes a lot of hard work to be a good dancer and it does get harder as you move along the levels).
Going by the timeframe that the other review was written, it was at the end of the school year and the school puts on a show every year. Obviously, the students who are heavily involved with the show and have principal roles will be required to be there as others are depending on them. My son had a minor role in a play one year and it required a lot of time commitment, but he showed up according to the rehearsal schedule. This is also true if you only take classes as well. Since there are many classes offer at this school, they have to set the rehearsal schedule to accomodate all of the classes.
Granted, there may be some hiccups here and there. I also encountered an alpha-​mom here as well as asked a teacher to be more considerate to sticking to class schedule. Obviously, I couldn’t control the mom, but the teacher was considerate with my request. My family has been treated well by the teachers and the staff.
I also take exercise classes here and enjoy them.

The teachers are not nice — they are rude to the children and the parents. They are not flexible about kids missing classes, which is really hard when your kid gets straight A’s and is in honors classes and sometimes has academic activities that necessitate missing class.
There is NOT an attitude of support or customer service here.