BENGALURU: A city school has slapped legal notice on the parents of three of its students after they allegedly dragged down the school’s Google ratings by posting negative reviews.

It all began in May when the management of Harvest International School in Kodithi , near Sarjapur, had a meeting with parents announcing an 8% hike in fees. The same day, they noticed their school’s rating on Google slid and Facebook flooded with negative comments. The school’s rating slid from 4.8 to 3.8 and touched its lowest at 2 in one day.

The school blamed the decline on a campaign by the parents. After a discussion on group messaging platform Telegram, the parents, the school claimed, decided to express their displeasure through social media.

It served the parents a legal notice, a copy of which is with TOI, asking them to ‘desist from all such activities, delete the adverse comments on social networks and Google Review’. The notice also asked them to delete Telegram. Further, the school approached Google to delete the negative reviews.

