I just went recently to this school and had a very similar experience to the previous reviewer. My…read moreson is not happy about moving to Playa. We live in the US and he doesn't want to leave his friends and his school. That day, we went to several schools and decided to go see this school as well. By the time we got there he was tired of seeing all these different schools. The person at the entrance was not very friendly, she mentioned they were full and that the school has a waitlist. She went to talk to someone and then they told us to come in. We talked to a woman called Claudia. She told us to come in. She had two chairs and there were 4 of us: my husband, my mom, my son and I. This woman said to my mom: "would you like a chair, m'am?" my mom replied she was ok, but this woman had left to get her a chair. She came back with the chair (that was nice of her), so my son sat down on it. This woman got super annoyed that my son took the chair and started to get aggressive and say that he should give the chair to my mom and that he should go get another chair (like he knows the school and knows where to get another chair!). My son stood up but after being scolded of course he was not comfortable and neither were we. I was thinking to myself: what is the big deal with the chairs?! She started to tell us about the school. Their focus on art, etc. Seems like their system is not too bad, but I didn't find it super good either. Then we toured the school and it's really small and they don't have anything in there, except for a small playground, that's it. Other schools we went to had a pool and nicer facilities in general, plus we had this rude woman scolding our son and she also told us they are full and have a waitlist. So if you are planning to go there, be prepared and maybe take a few chairs just in case, because you won't get any extra chairs, ridiculous!!

Never been treated with such contempt by any "professional" staff. Had an appointment this morning…read morewith the school principal, I will not go over all details of how rude and disrespectful, not to mention unprofessional this lady was, but it just came down to a very blunt dry cut "no, sorry there is no more room for your daughter" answer. Without asking any questions about our daughter's academic stand she just pulled the "we are full" card, with an attitude proper of a government employee who makes minimum wage and not a behavior of an education professional. Well if you are "full" why did your office even made this appointment possible when they well knew my daughter's age and grade? It seemed that she just didn't like us right from the start when she came into the front office and asked her clerk: "son estos" ....!!! this will translate into "are these two my appointment"? "these two"?!!! really?, she invites my wife to come in saying "pasele senora" and I was wondering if the invitation was for both or should I just stay there, anyway I followed, she started the interview by asking which grade was my daughter in (very unprepared, that is something you, as a principal should at least know BEFORE any parent interview). When we told her my daughter age, without hesitation she responded: "no pues esta dificil, ya estamos llenos para ese grado" ("that's going to be hard, we are already booked for that grade") she went on to say, " it will be a waste of my time to even continue talking about your daughter at this point"....REALLY? A WASTE OF YOUR TIME?! EXCUSE ME, I AM SORRY FOR COMING HERE TO WASTE YOUR TIME!..... "and besides, all students here have an excellent level of English, and those who don't meet our language standards (either Spanish or English) are automatically bumped one level down.... At that point we were, well, aggravated , and somehow disappointed, we heard good things about the school, it was recommended by one of our neighbors and we looked forward to at least have our daughter given the opportunity to take a placement test. I am Mexican-American my wife Argentinean-American, our daughter was born in NYC and raised in Texas were I served in the US Army (needless to say she is fluent in both English and Spanish, she was for all of her school years Honor Role A student, GT Student, a great athlete and extremely sociable and well manner. I am a veteran of OIF, a graduate from SUNY in Business and Economics and MBA graduate from Baylor University in Texas. With all my knowledge and experience I still wonder how someone like this principal is responsible for running a school, if this is the principal, I am glad we didn't get to meet the teachers.

I can't even begin to explain how completely disorganized, heartless, and unprofessional this…read moreschool is. My kid started during Covid (so school was online). We received zero orientation. There was no introduction of the staff or any sort of parent group chat. The way they handled online school is very indicative of their overall callous, poorly-run, "education sweat shop" philosophy. They had kids staring at screens from 8am to 2:30pm everyday with their only "break" being a short lunch. No recess. No social hour. 2 weeks after school started, the school asked for a Zoom meeting with me. No reason was given. When the meeting started, I was accosted by 8 people I didn't know (minus 2 teachers). None of these people bothered to introduce themselves. They attacked me about why my daughter was struggling and went so far as to blame her intelligence--she broke out in tears overhearing the staff's remarks. I explained that we have no idea where the work is, how to turn it in, etc. I had been messaging the English teacher repeatedly asking for help. She was completely useless, sending me back an incomplete, poorly organized document supposedly answering my questions (see attached photos). The teachers finally started typing up a weekly outline. It had to be printed (boo) & was insanely hard-to-follow (normally a 5 page document) because they wrote it out in long sentences. We had to start writing out a "3rd grade appropriate" version of the lesson plan each day that listed short bullet points of what was homework & what was an in-class activity. The kids were not allowed AT ANY POINT to openly converse with their friends. As a new kid in town, this made my kid EXTREMELY isolated. Once my daughter took a screenshot of a classmate, wrote "BFF" on it, and posted it as her Zoom background. This was the only way to communicate to her classmate that she was a special friend--how heartbreaking is that! A "class lunch" was scheduled for the last day before Christmas vacation. Several students begged for the teachers to simply allow the children to speak freely among each other. The teachers would not allow this during what was supposed to be a fun party. On our last day of school here (we left mid-year), my kid announced that it was her last day. For some reason, the school counselor Miss Tere teaches classes (one thing she definitely doesn't do is ANY actual counseling--like offering tohelp a new student who is obviously drowning) asked why she was leaving. My kid said, "I prefer not to say." Then my sher added that if someone wanted her uniform, they could come pick it up for free at our house. Miss Tere, who is truly a machiavellian spawn from hell, said for kids to call me to make arrangements. My daughter said, "Actually, that's one of the reasons I'm leaving. Nobody knows how to contact my mom." She tried to say my phone number so the kids could actually contact me, & Miss Tere muted her while telling the kids, "Woops, looks like Jenni's audio went out." She then removed my kid from the Zoom session. Just a typical day at the sweatshop. Once the art teacher required the kids to paint a king & queen. She said that the queen had to be wearing a dress. My daughter asked why. The teacher's response: "Tradition." My daughter asked if she could have permission not to draw the queen in a dress. The teacher said no. Finally, on not one but two report cards my daughter received in her time here, the staff evaluated her "curiosity" as a 2 out of 4. I feel deeply disgusted, disturbed--almost to the point of nausea, every time I think about this assessment. How is ANY child not curious? Again, finally, the International American School of Cancun is not a safe space for children.