This page presents evidence of a student who later contacted a media to make negative TV show. For anonymity, the student's name has been changed to "bob_tremblay." His intensive training program at Desgraff was from sept 2015 - August 2016. Conversations are transcribed below in a chat-like format for clarity, based on the original messenger exchange.
Conversation from Near March 2017
"Bob_Tremblay" is praising the quality of the courses he received at Desgraff immediately after being contacted by a competing school to the Desgraff director:
David:
Ok parce que peu etre il alimerait savoir la facon on fait nos correction, projets etc
bob_tremblay:
Je savais même pas qu'il avait un ecole mais j'ai toujours su rester discret, la seul chose que je lui est dit est que j'etais satisfait de la formation et que en un an on avait beaucoup de controle sur nos acquis.
David:
Okidoo
David:
Je te reviens sur le sujet. Je vais quand meme lui donner sa chance
David:
C sur que il est en conflit avec son Xsart
David:
Mais bon...
David:
C a suivre
bob_tremblay:
Ouai peut être qu'il n'est pas mal attentionné mais c'est vrai que dans le doute vaut mieux ne pas faire trop confiance et être naif sur ses dires
Conversation from Near August 2017
Graduates, depending on their schedules, can contact the director to ask for assistance. They have different situations, and the director can tailor solutions accordingly on a case-by-case basis, such as attending another class for free for courses like Substance Painter, UDK, and ZBrush.
However, no one from his class contacted the school about this except him. We contacted some of those students individually, but we're not getting much traction or information. This was unusual and felt like something else was going on—some students were quiet, refusing jobs, or quitting, but we couldn't pinpoint the exact issue.
We organized a class for them and recorded videos so that all graduates could view them. But no one from his class attended, so we later edited and planned to publish these video series covering these courses, which were included in the graduates' portal in 2018 for all former students dating back to 2007. The following conversation demonstrates the school's responsiveness to suggestions for software updates, such as Substance Painter.
bob_tremblay:
Super c'est une excellente nouvelle et une bonne initiative pour faire subsister l'école
David:
👍 Merci
David:
On va avoir le nouveau site web bientôt. Au début ca sera incomplet. Mais bref déjà mieux que ce qui a la.
bob_tremblay:
Nice, sait tu ce qui serait vraiment une bonne corde à ton arc ? Une petite semaine de ratrapage avec les nouveaux logiciels que vous apprenez pour les étudiants de mon année, question de redonner la flamme et potentiellement hausser le placement
David:
Oui c prevue
David:
On va reactiver la formation continue et les webinars en plus
bob_tremblay:
Nice mais genre juste une petite semaine en classe, beaucoup de gens ne connaisse pas les logiciels next-gen et ou on tout simplement pas le budget pour l'essayer ! De plus offrir ce genre de formation d'adaptation ca prove que tu as tes étudiants a coeur et que tu prend les mesures pour s'assurer de leurs réussite
bob_tremblay:
Car je sais que certain ce sont décourager et ont arrêter alors se replonger dans le métier ca leur ferais pas de tors.
David:
Yes 🙂
bob_tremblay:
Genre pas plus que ca, juste une bonne semaine !!
bob_tremblay:
Udk 4 et substance
David:
As tu revu ton ancienne ecole depuis?
David:
Oui on a substance udk4 et zbrush actuellement.
Note: The conversation highlights the student's positive feedback and the director's agreement to provide updates, which contrasts with his later claims. After this conversation, he began to behave arrogantly and insultingly, pushing his way to run the school and spreading a false narrative while he is the solution.
The turning point:
The director: "One day, he mentioned that everyone at the municipal support center for new startups hated me. In response, I decided to make a surprise visit on the same day. Everyone was absolutely wonderful—no dirty looks, and I had a great time. When I stepped outside the building, he was standing in a corner, laughing and looking uncomfortable. When I got home, I decided to block him on Facebook because I saw his behavior as harassment. This is the point when I think he flip completly against us. Not because the school was bad but because he wanted some type of control and I was not going to give him".
"Then I received a phone call because he was upset that I blocked him on Facebook, and he asked if he could be hired to restructure the school or replace me." When the director politely declined, then that graduate started to scream and take a huge fit and said, "I will talk against you and the school, YOU WILL SEE!!".
We also heard that he tried to hire two of our teachers at the Sherbrooke Campus and was posting hateful messages on Steam, Facebook, and Google reviews. At one point we received 13 telephone calls from him in a day. Later, he asked for a check in ransom to stop making smearing comments online and pretended that he "just wanted to express his honest opinion about the school", claiming that the school wanted to silence him. However, he was satisfied and clearly threatened to smear the school... (There is another Messenger messages where he express his hate and says the director is unfit, that he should be replaced by someone like him, and that he will be there when the school closes.)
Then, the school director decided to create a Facebook group called "Graduate help Group 61" for this graduate class to understand why they have been so quiet since August 2016. He had only received updates from that harassing student. After interacting, offering help, and trying to understand their situation, the director and the graduates kept being interrupted by that student (aka "Bob_Tremblay"), who wanted to maintain control of the conversation and make it seem like the school was withholding help. He attempted to create the impression that the school did not want to assist and had no solutions except his own to control and validate.
Below is the conversation of that graduate Facebook group where I say the help is free:
David Deschenes
Gratuit pour groupe 61
22w
"Bob_Tremblay"
Ceci est la dernière chance que j'accorde concernant les cours de mise à niveau.
Je désire précisément savoir :
- La durée de la mise à niveau.
- Les logiciels montrés.
- La durée par logiciel.
- Le plan de cours (et les apprentissages) de la mise à niveau.
- Les dates et le lieu.
- Est-ce pour tous ? Si non, qui en est exclu ?
Afterward, he further advanced his plans with the negative TV show to boost his class action lawsuit private Facebook group — initially shared with a few individuals, but which grew larger after the TV show.