February 2024 Parent Letter

Dear Parents and Students,

Can you believe it’s already February? We’ve got a lot going on this month so please read this email all the way through and save it for your records.

Contents

Tuition & Performance Fee

Movie Night

Observation Weeks

Summer Classes

Concert Volunteers

February tuition is due today. On February 20, you will see the charge for the performance fee ($50 per student) added to your account; that is due March 1 along with March tuition.

Movie night for Ballet 1 and younger students is coming up this Saturday from 5:30-7:30 and we will be watching Barbie in the 12 Dancing Princesses! To sign up, go to the Events tab in the SportsEngine Motion app and RSVP for the movie night. I will also put a paper sign up in the studio, or you can just email me to let me know you’re coming. Siblings and friends are invited as well. Admission is $10 which includes popcorn and a craft. Feel free to come in pajamas or other comfy clothes and to bring pillows, blankets, or whatever other cozy items you like. The next movie night for older dancers who want to watch a complete ballet will be March 2, from 5:30-8:00, and we will be watching one of my favorite ballets, Coppelia, featuring an Australian Ballet performance from 1990 – but trust me, it holds up!

Our next Observation Week is also for our younger dancers (Creative Movement, Elementary, and Ballet 1), and will be February 5-10. If you’re wondering why we have more observation days for younger dancers than older dancers this year, that’s because we wanted our older dancers to be able to learn and refine some longer or more “performancey” combinations, in order to incentivize more parental attendance (the younger classes already have great attendance for observation weeks!). The next observation week for all classes will be March 11-15.

As early as it seems, it’s time to start thinking about summer classes. Students in Ballet 3-5 are required to take a minimum number of hours during the summer (12 for Ballet 3, 16 for Ballet 4, 20 for Ballet 5). You don’t have to complete all those hours at our studio, but we will be offering plenty of classes and we encourage you to take as many as possible. More details will be coming later; for now, please take note of these dates:

Mini Intensive (recommended for Elementary 2 Accelerated and Ballet 1 who haven’t attended a summer intensive yet): July 8-12, 10:00-1:00

Beginning Intensive (recommended for Ballet 1-2): July 29-August 2, 9:45-2:30

Intermediate Intensive (recommended for Ballet 3): July 15-19 and July 22-26, 10:00-3:15

Advanced Intensive (recommended for Ballet 4-5): July 8-12 and July 15-19, 9:30-3:30

Fairytale Ballet (a fun workshop for children aged 3-8): June 24-28, July 29-August 2, and August 12-16

We are in need of several volunteers to help us with the concert. This year, we will be returning to the gorgeous Fox Theater in downtown Spokane. There are pros and cons to this venue, but one of the pros is that we do not have to manage our own box office or front of house operations. If you initially volunteered to do that, I’ll be reaching out to see what other area you can help with. Please click this link [https://www.signupgenius.com/go/10C0E44A9A82AAAFDC52-47658437-summer] to see a list of jobs we need volunteers for. Please note that since we will be at the Fox, we will only be having one performance; however, dressing room helpers will be able to watch their dancers perform from the side of the stage. Thank you in advance for your help!

Have a great February – I’m hoping for an early spring!

November Parent Letter 2023

November Parent Letter Dear Parents and Students,

Can you believe it’s already November? Once again we have a busy month ahead of us so I’ll get right into it.

***

Contents:

- Tuition reminder

- costume fee and student info form reminder

- contact info reminder

- Ballet watch party November 4

- Observation Week November 6-11

- Conference Week November 13-17

- No class days this month

***

Tuition for November is due today. Remember to enroll in auto-pay if you want your tuition to be paid automatically. It is late after the 10th.

Our costume fee is due December 1. It is $65 for Ballet 4-5 students and $60 for all other students. Costumes are yours to keep after the summer concert. If your child will not be in the summer concert, please indicate that on your student information form which you can fill out here if you haven’t yet.

Contact info. If you want to receive text notifications when a parent letter is sent or regarding urgent information such as last-minute closures, you need to enter your cell phone and mobile carrier information into your parent profile. This is the only way I can send text messages now that we are using GoMotion so you will not receive text messages from us if you don’t have this information in your profile. You can also download the SportsEngineMotion app and sign up for push notifications. I will only send notifications regarding important updates.

Ballet watch party. We will be watching the Royal Ballet’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland on Saturday, November 4, from 5:00-7:30. Admission is only $5 per person and includes popcorn! This movie night is for dancers who can sit through an entire ballet with no dialogue so we are intending it for students in Ballet 1 and up.

Observation week. Our first observation week is November 6-11! This observation week is for all classes and levels. Family members are invited to come into the studio, watch class, and ask questions of the teacher. It’s a great way to meet other parents, get to know the faculty, and see what your child is learning and how a ballet class is structured.

Conference week. Our first parent-teacher conference week is November 13-17. You can go to this link [https://www.signupgenius.com/go/10C0E44A9A82AAAFDC52-45736046-fall] to sign up for a 20-minute conference with your child’s teacher(s). Due to our overlapping schedules, Sara and Lesley’s availability is minimal so if your child does not have a class with one of them, please sign up for a slot where they are not listed as available. If you would like a conference but none of the time slots listed work for you, email me and we will find a time to meet. You can schedule a conference any time of year, but we set aside some extra time during conference weeks to encourage parents to come in and discuss their child’s progress.

There will be class on Friday, November 10, and Saturday, November 11, despite the holiday. Therewill be no class Wednesday-Friday, November 22-24, in honor of Thanksgiving. Saturday classes will meet on the 25th as a make-up for the day we canceled at the end of September when everyone was sick. Please let us know if you will be able to attend.

That’s all for this month! I hope to see many of you at observation week!

~Naomi

October 2023 Parent Letter

Dear Parents and Students,

October is set to be a busy month at the Academy! Please read and save this parent letter for your records.

Contents:

- tuition and billing clarification

- attendance, make-up, and sick policy

- movie night October 7

- Master class opportunity October 9 (Ballet 4-5)

- fundraiser night October 14

- Gonzaga performance October 26

- Costume week October 25-31

Tuition and billing clarification. September tuition is now past due. October tuition is due but is not late until after the 10th. We have had a lot of questions about billing since we switched platforms. The billing manager is set to post tuition on the 20th of each month. If you are enrolled in auto-pay, your card will be charged 10 days later, either the 1st of the month or the day before depending on how many days are in the month. This is how the old system was set up as well. However, I wasn’t able to do the same thing for September since we started in the middle of the month, so tuition was posted on the 11th (or whatever your first day of class was) and auto-pay processed 10 days after that. If you didn’t pay September tuition before the 20th, this meant your account showed two months of tuition at the same time. If you are enrolled in auto-pay, however, you were only charged for September. I apologize for the confusion this caused! It should be more straightforward from here on out. Please note that you have to opt in to auto-pay, not opt out. If you are not in auto-pay and have not paid September tuition, you can pay by cash, check, or card at the office or make a payment online by logging into your account.

Attendance, make-up, and sick policy. With school starting and the weather turning colder, we already have had several kids (and two teachers!) out sick. If your child is sick, please keep them home until they are better. Your child will recover more quickly if they have time to rest, and we don’t want to spread anything to the other students or teachers. If your child has recovered from an illness but still has a lingering cough, we recommend having them wear a mask for class (we have child-sized surgical masks available). If your child is going to miss class for any reason, please notify the office by calling or emailing. We also encourage everyone to make up their absences. Elementary 1 and 2 can attend their same level on a different day of the week; Ballet 1-5 can attend a class one level below their own. Unfortunately there is no second Creative Movement class at this time, but we’re hoping to add another one soon.

Movie night October 7. Our first movie night is approaching! We will be watching Barbie in the Pink Shoes on October 7 from 5-7 pm. This movie night is intended for children ages 8 and younger and will include a craft, coloring pages, and plenty of popcorn. Academy students, siblings, and friends are all welcome to join; admission is $10 per person. You can sign up at the studio or on the SportsEngine Motion app by going to “Events and Jobs” in the left-hand sidebar.

Master class opportunity October 9. We have an exciting opportunity for our Ballet 4-5 students coming up soon! One of Lesley’s former students, Katie O'Loughlin, recently graduated from Ohio State University with an MFA in Dance and she will be visiting us on the 9th. We would love our students to have the opportunity to take a contemporary class from her. Class times for the 9th will remain unchanged; however, the Ballet 5 class time will be a contemporary class taught by Katie, which we encourage Ballet 4 students to attend if they want to. Additionally, any Ballet 5 students who want a classical technique class that day should also come to Ballet 4 from 4:00-5:30.

Fundraiser night October 14. As I mentioned in last month’s parent letter, we have partnered with Caruso’s Sandwiches and Artisan Pizza to hold a fundraiser night for Spokane Youth Ballet! However, we pushed the date back by a couple weeks to give us more time to get the word out. We are now holding the fundraiser on October 14. Between 4-8 pm, if you go to Caruso’s or order from them online (delivery or pickup) and mention that you want to participate in our fundraiser, 20% of your bill will be donated to SYB to help fund our summer concert. We’d love to see many of you at the restaurant! They are located on Argonne just south of Montgomery. Originally, we were planning to have a family night the following weekend, on the 21st, but with all the other events in October we decided that would be too much. So the fundraiser night will be a great opportunity to meet other parents in the studio!

Gonzaga performance October 26. Gonzaga University’s Fall Dance Day is Thursday, October 26. There are events for aspiring dance majors throughout the day, but at 7:30 pm they are holding a performance at the Myrtle Woldson Performing Arts Center featuring, among other performances, a piece choreographed by our own Phaedra Jarrett on their students. We would love to make this a “ballet field trip” night! It does conflict with Ballet 3, however, so we would have to schedule a time to make that up. Let me know if you would object to pulling a long dance day and coming to a Ballet 4 class (4:00-5:30) in addition to your Ballet 2/3 class on either Monday or Wednesday of that week.

Costume week October 25-31. One of my favorite traditions at the Academy of Dance is our costume weeks! Our first one is October 25-31, which is a Wednesday through Tuesday. During this time, students may dress up during their regular classes in an old dance costume, a Halloween costume, or any other attire as long as it doesn’t impede their movement or ability to participate fully in class. Please keep these rules in mind: 1) No capes, cloaks, scaves, necklaces, or any other costume elements that wrap around the neck (this is for safety). If your costume has an element like this, it will need to be removed for class. 2) Dancers will still need to wear ballet shoes and (girls) have their hair in a bun. 3) Nothing gory, scary, or otherwise inappropriate to be seen by young or sensitive dancers. 4) if your costume is too hot, wear your ballet clothes underneath so you can remove the costume if necessary. Many teachers and some students also hand out candy during this week. Please let me know if your child has any food allergies and I will pass that information along. You can email me or list food allergies under “Medical Notes” in your child’s Member profile on your SportsEngine account.

That’s all the news for October! Have a great fall month!

~Naomi <><