School of Rock

This place rocks! I joined the adult band with no prior experience and it has been a blast to learn along with others. The instructors are very passionate and personable.

As you can tell from the previous negative reviews the owner Tracey Fondren is extremely unprofessional and would rather stress out the overworked understaffed team at the Issaquah location. I submitted a negative review (internal to their system) of the camp my kids attended and the owner reached out. I took the time to write what their experience was expecting some accountability on her end. Nope, she made the young camp coordinator call me and apologize. Disgusting!! My review was basically that she had set the team up for failure. There was basically one person to work with 13 kids which is impossible when they are learning 6 different songs at 13 different levels of experience and age. My letter to Tracy is below. She herself never responded, not even to thank me for the time in providing my feedback. All this to say - don’t waste your money. They put your kids in front of a Chromebook in an isolated room and call this camp. Hi Tracy, Thank you for your email. I appreciate your follow-up to my negative rating. I didn’t really have time to go into all the concerns I had with the camp and I wasn’t that invested seeing as it was unlikely we would ever return (sorry that’s a bit harsh but true). My boys didn’t enjoy the camp at all. They are pretty easygoing and kinda went with the flow but would come home every afternoon not wanting to return. Here is the list of things they didn’t like. 1) Being handed a Chromebook and sent to a room by themselves with little to no help. For me, had I known your primary form of having the kids learn is with a device I would’ve never signed them up in the first place. 2) There wasn’t enough personal instruction (their words). It seems Delaney was the only one working with all the kids. Again, had I known there were less than 3 people working with all the kids it would’ve been a no-go for me - especially knowing what you charge for this camp. 3) Because of the way the camp is designed (where you don’t limit the amount of instruments ) this camp had 6 drummers for 6 songs. My son was only on one song (five days working on one song -this was boring for him) he tried another song to learn but still was bored. A lot of waiting around while the other kids were rehearsing. My younger son was the same - bored. His parts were so easy for him that he was bored out of his mind and really didn’t want to go back Thurs /Friday. The best part of the camp for them was lunch. So that has to tell you something. For me, I was expecting them to come home with sheet music (which my husband ended up doing for them) and be taught something -anything. Also, you could tell that the kids weren’t taught how to perform together (one of the main reasons for having them do a camp like this) which isn’t surprising if your primary form of instruction is YouTube. My kids have been playing music since they were 4,5 and do not have access to devices at home. I would’ve never sent my kids to what I feel is a very expensive camp only for them to be given a device and sent to a room and be isolated from the other kids and only checked in on every once and a while. This for me is in no way a “camp” and the little blurb you have to advertise this camp doesn’t reflect the real thing. I can tell you as I type this it just makes me angrier and angrier. My boys play classical piano and is starting drums (his instrument for middle school) and I was so excited for them to experience music outside of Chopin. This is not at all what I had in mind and I really believe that they were robbed by this experience. Both boys feel that they didn’t learn anything that they could’ve just taught themselves at home. If you are interested in reimbursing us for this experience I would greatly appreciate it. I didn’t need a daycare for my kids as they would’ve had a lot to do at home - so this really was meant for them to immerse themselves in music - which sadly was a very negative experience for them.

My child has found a place to feel at home with other children that have a deep love of music. The instructors are trained in both classical and contemporary music providing a rich education. This year my child joined Performance Band and I would highly recommend this experience to every family. My son was nervous about it at first, but on day one came home with a huge smile, excitement and a new eagerness to practice. My child found peers who understand them and adults who care. I love School of Rock!

Chad & his team of musical instructors are great with the kids. My son (who is autistic) has really come out of his shell & loves performing. They care about their students & they all have a really great time! Making up missed lessons is easy & flexible. Would highly recommend.

The adult program at the school is great - I went from singing in front of literally no one to having the confidence to sing on stage in front of anyone! The instructors are very knowledgeable, helpful, passionate, and fantastic at what they do. The owners are friendly and more than willing to answer questions. I also really like that I can use my personal lesson slot for whatever instrument I want to try (when available), not always just for the track I'm on. Very happy with my experience at School of Rock Issaquah!