Lindamood Bell

I did eighty hours of online training with this tutoring company, and worked in one of their centers for one week before quitting due to the unprofessional, hostile work environment. They never paid me.

I was interviewed twice, hired, and had to start training with Lindamood Bell less than 24 hours after submitting an online resume.

The eighty hours of online training was worthless because I was unable to use the instructional materials. I was sent a MacBook that had links to all the curriculum items, which I could not access or use during training due to technical glitches in their system. They did not have a tech support person contact me until the last day of training.

In addition, I missed nearly two days of training because they insisted that I drop everything and come personally to the office to bring documents to verify my identity and eligibility to work. They claimed they could not wait for me to do this at a time that would not interfere with training.

The company also sent me to be fingerprinted for a background check and tested for Tuberculosis while I was supposed to be training. I had to pay for the fingerprinting, background check, and Tuberculosis test out of my own pocket.

When I reported to work, I had no mentor teacher or supervisor to show me around the center or shadow me. I was given one hour by myself to figure out how to use the MacBook for student record keeping, accessing lesson plans, and teaching materials.

After It was discovered there were still technical issues with accessing the materials, I was given a fistful of paper lesson plans for students, and directed to a thoroughly disorganized shelf of text books. I was later told that the books were in disarray because the company's COVID protocol did not permit tutors to use these textbooks.

Apparently, this particular COVID restriction did not apply to new employees.

Besides throwing new employees into the deep end and watching them drown, the company had no child free zones where employees could go for breaks. Tutors either had to stand outside the center's front door, or, if they remained inside, they were expected to play games with the children. There were no accommodations for eating lunch, neither indoors nor out, and I had no choice but to eat in my car in the parking lot when it was over 100 degrees outside.

Employees were not provided with a secure place for personal belongings. I had to leave my pocket book on the floor in a storage room, to which the children had access.

(Can we talk about my checkbook that mysteriously went missing?)

Management was always in a huge rush to leave at the end of the day. Therefore, in spite of the fact that late one day I told everyone in the lobby, including parents, students, the manager, and a couple of tutors that I was stepping out to the ladies' room for a moment, they all left. I was locked out with no pocket book, cell phone, or car keys. I had to hunt somebody down in one of the other offices in the building.

Multiple phone calls were made before somebody was found who could let me back into the center, and I had to wait a couple of hours to retrieve my belongings and go home.

I quit as soon as I arrived at the center the next morning. As a courtesy, I worked for that whole day, though the parents of the students I "taught" certainly did not get their money's worth. It has now been almost four months since I quit, and Lindamood Bell has never paid me. They owe me more than $2000.00.

Prior to being hired by Lindamood Bell, I was a head teacher for Huntington Learning Center, another nationally franchised learning center, for ten years.

The particular center I worked for sadly did not survive the pandemic, otherwise I would still be working for them. I trained tutors and teachers for my previous employer. I know what is required for preparing new employees to teach children.

Lindamood Bell's system for training was atrocious. The work environment in their learning centers was a nightmare.