Niagara Alternative Learning Alliance

” This place is not a Community Project. I work in Construction, so very long days, and I spent my evenings and weekends setting this place up, painting, sanding floors with equipment I rented, making various pick-ups with my trailer, I put supplies and materials on my credit card, because I thought it was about the kids. I asked my friends and family for donations too. The owner of the business and her friends, run the place like their own personal Fantasy Island where they tell themselves it’s all about the kids and families and communities, and that they are good and moral people, all to feed their egos. They use people for whatever they can offer them, and then cast them off if they threaten their illusion of how great they are. They have zero accountability and if you question them, you get kicked out. It all came out that this has always been a business, so I’d like to know when I’m going to be reimbursed for all the time and money I spent enhancing your business? Pretty smart scam if you ask me. “

” Wow where to even begin with this terrible experience… how about the beginning? Like the very birth of this place? I was there, supposedly a co-founder with Monica McCourt and Lori Davidson. It was supposed to be, and so we told everyone at the open houses, it would be a non-profit, a community home schooling center and a freedom based model with “no bosses”. I brought in a ton of teaching supplies, and made a number of donations as well under this guise. Within the first week I witnessed a number of concerning things (conflicts in the halls between Ms. McCourt and other staff, Ms. McCourt throwing cash around without account). Also within that week, while my partner was painting (what I now know to be) her offices for free, as a professional on his free time, we were told to leave because I questioned Ms McCourt on her treatment of a child. She threw such a tantrum for being questioned that her own daughter was distraught and disoriented and I had to calm her daughter down as she had fled in a rage. My partner and I also had been trying to use the advertised mental health resources for a child in our care and she came back after insisting I leave to tell everyone how I “had an episode in the hallway” because of “family issues”. Not realizing the order to leave that first Thursday was a case of being “fired” (there were “no bosses” and I helped with setting the place up and had worked that entire week – I was compensated for none of this effort) I returned the Monday of the third week after being out of the region all of the previous one. That night as I was prepping math and science lessons (and discussing them with Lori) I received a message from Ms. McCourt (attached, and I was blocked by her immediately after I read it) that my son’s spot had been filled already, there was no room for us at NALA and communication between Lori and myself had been misinterpreted. Lori had identified me as a third founder to the journalist… earlier that same day, in front of Ms. McCourt… She needs to communicate better with reality. Some weeks after my departure from this insane academy I saw images of an email Ms. McCourt sent another parent (who paid tuition and volunteered fulltime) that it was “never a non-profit”. Stay far away from this unhinged scammer and misguided venture. “