Petition for Improved Conditions at Bellus Academy’s Chula Vista Campus

We, the undersigned students, staff, and concerned community members, petition Bellus Academy to address the pressing issues that negatively impact the quality of education and overall experience at the Chula Vista campus. We believe that immediate action is needed to improve the following conditions:

 

1. Building Repairs and Renovations Needed: The campus facilities require urgent repairs and maintenance to ensure a safe and conducive learning environment. Issues such as leaky roofs, broken fixtures, and outdated infrastructure have impeded students to comfortably and effectively learn. There are roaches on classroom floors and there is equipment taking up space in classrooms that are needed for students to sit and learn. Additionally, we recommend changes in layout and specific equipment to ensure comfort and privacy for clients and students. For example, more storage rooms for equipment should be created, and more comfortable salon chairs and wash bowls for clients and models should be installed. More specifically, we recommend the use of sliding doors rather than the use of curtains on the clinic floor to provide necessary privacy. The curtains installed now have gaps between the fabric and the wall, creating privacy issues when performing a service with a client. Conversations can be overheard as the curtains do not provide any noise barrier between rooms, which hinders the relaxation experience to clients during their service. We call on Bellus Academy to prioritize building repairs and improvements to provide a better and more positive campus experience. 

2. Lack of Working Equipment: The inadequate availability of functioning equipment in the beauty school classrooms and Esthetician Senior Clinic floor hinders our ability to gain hands-on experience and practical skills that are essential for our education. Proper equipment is necessary when performing a service on a paying client, and the lack of equipment prevents students from properly learning necessary skills. We recommend ensuring all classes have appropriate sponges and QUATS containers to clean equipment and tools. Additionally, having different teachers order inventory for each class causes inequality with inventory and inconsistent learning experiences. As a result, it is unfair that the freshman class has a higher volume and better quality of working equipment than the senior clinic floor when senior students are the ones working on paying clients. We urge Bellus Academy to invest in updating and maintaining the equipment to ensure a high-quality learning environment for all students. 

3. Classroom Size Conditions: The current class sizes exceed the maximum efficiency of the classrooms, leading to cramped and uncomfortable learning environments. Large class sizes impede the proper communication between instructors and students since one teacher handling a large number of students is inadequate in providing an effective educational experience. To fix this issue, we recommend enrolling only a certain number of students every few periods (e.g., every three months) rather than every month. This would solve students' inability to perform services due to the minimal number of service rooms available. We urge Bellus Academy to address this issue by reducing class sizes to ensure a more effective teaching and learning environment.

4. Insufficient Parking: The severe shortage of parking spaces near the campus creates unnecessary stress and inconvenience for students, staff, and visitors. Many are forced to park far from the school, compromising safety and punctuality. Insufficient parking creates issues such as double parking and vehicles blocking other vehicles. When this happens, the blocked person must go through the entire school to find the vehicle's owner, which causes even more stress and unsafe conditions in case of emergencies. Students and clients must also deal with the fear of being towed if they park illegally. In the event that the tow truck appears during a service, it becomes necessary to stop in the middle of a service in order to prevent vehicles from being towed. This creates a very unprofessional and embarrassing situation for the school. We request that Bellus Academy explore solutions to improve parking accessibility for all campus community members.

6. Uninformative Admissions Meeting: Since Bellus Academy requires every new enrollee to have an admissions meeting, these meetings should thoroughly and effectively explain the tuition and how the school operates. Students have found themselves confused and needing to ask teachers, student services, and other students about policies that were not explained before paying their tuition. For example, each class category (esthetics, cosmetology, spa nails, and barbering) has similarities in the course information required for each particular license, but they all vary in cost. Admissions Services educate students on the option of transferring to other classes after completing one program rather than informing them of courses that include all the skills that are required to obtain their certification. Admissions Services does not educate students on the makeup hours policies and fees that will be charged to them if students miss school or go on an LOA. Instead, they only suggest that students do not miss a day of school or go on vacations. Students have trouble reading their progress reports since they are not taught how to do so. Students have difficulty understanding which classes are required to complete in order to graduate. A more thorough explanation is needed on how to make up hours and assignments they missed to avoid causing them to go past their scheduled graduation date, in addition to explaining paying fees for missing classes. We urge Bellus Academy to ensure that admissions meetings are thorough and clearly informative for all students who wish to enroll with the school. 

7. Overpriced Tuition: The high cost of tuition at Bellus Academy's Chula Vista campus needs to align with the quality of the educational experience provided. Students are burdened with excessive financial strain for disproportionate educational experience and inadequate school conditions. On Mondays, students in the freshman classes do independent bookwork for all 6 hours. This bookwork is the same assignment hybrid students are required to do, but can do at home by paying an extra $12. Once lecture/theory day occurs, teachers read off PowerPoint slides that present the same information students learn from bookwork. Additionally, when skill demonstrations fall short, students must watch YouTube videos to learn the skills necessary to obtain their licenses rather than learn them from actual instructors at the school. Once students reach the clinic floor, there are no further assignments that are required to be completed. If students are not assigned a service with a client or cannot obtain a bed to practice skills, they are forced to sit in the classroom and find something to do to pass the time. Advanced classes offered by Bellus Academy are an additional cost to tuition if students wish to learn additional skills, but are not given the opportunity to practice those skills at the school. Furthermore, to complete the required number of procedure points, students must bring paying clients to the school to perform the service during their assigned makeup hours. However, students don’t receive a portion of the money that their client is paying the school. We urge Bellus Academy to reevaluate tuition fees to ensure they reflect the quality of education and resources available at the campus. 

8. Inconsistent Policies and Schedule: A new class of students is enrolled each upcoming month. With the new enrollees, new or different policies are inputted into the school curriculum. Continuous policy changes contradict the schedule for students who are currently enrolled, causing confusion. Unexpected presentations or changes in school policy have led to students having to cancel or reschedule appointments with clients. To solve this issue, we recommend doing huddles only once a month and replacing weekly meetings with a weekly newsletter, which would be displayed in front of the class once a week. These inconsistencies have caused the unavailability of faculty and student services in providing assistance and clarification to the new changes when needed by students. While this leads to minor issues such as not knowing when students will be transferred to different classes or transitioned to the senior clinic floor, it also results in teachers falling behind with theory sections as each class of “new starts” has completed certain content while others have not. Students have to play “catchup” or learn procedures the week before transferring to a new class, which does not give them adequate time to practice before moving to the clinic floor. We urge Bellus Academy to explore the recommended solutions to execute consistency and adequate notice with its policies and schedule.

9. Inconvenient Makeup Hours Policy: Assignments tend to be sent out to students after school hours, but per policy, students must turn in the assignments before 11:59 pm that same day. 

While it is reasonable for students to turn in these assignments by a specific deadline, submitting these daily assignments become challenging and inconvenient when insufficient time is provided to complete the task. Many of us students have jobs that we directly go to after school, which does not provide a sufficient span of time to complete assignments and submit them while having to balance familial and personal responsibilities along with preparing for the next school day. We recommend providing students with adequate time to complete assignments by extending the deadline to 11:59 pm on Sunday of that week. This way, students can have increased flexibility to submit multiple assignments if needed, to make up the hours of the days they missed. Additionally, we recommend that assignments be sent out at the beginning of the day for students to work on during school hours rather than after school hours. We urge Bellus Academy to review the makeup hours policy to make it more convenient for students.

We, the petition signatories, urge Bellus Academy to take immediate action to address these critical issues and prioritize the well-being and educational experience of the Chula Vista campus community. By working together, we can create a positive and supportive learning environment that benefits all stakeholders.

Thank you for your attention and commitment to improving the conditions at Bellus Academy's Chula Vista campus.

Sincerely,

Undersigned