does your co/team have any requirements that dancers be in good academic standing at school, or do you feel that this is none of our business as teachers/owners(as much as i care about their success, i'm more in the its not our business boat, but more of their parents concern).

reason i ask is that(and maybe this is everywhere), we have had several girls failing classes in school(and you know theyre not stupid), one even dropping out bc "school wasnt for her" her sr. year(yes, highschool) and her parents just let her.

i mean, i know society is getting lazier in general. and there is this no kid left behind thing, but i think too many kids dont know the value of hard work nowadays.
just curious as to your opinions.

This is a very interesting topic. I currently dont have a dance company but if I did I think I would probably have good academic standing as a requirement for my company. Although I have never heard of it in any of the studios I have taught at. I dont know if I would deal with it on just an individual basis if the situation ever came up or if I would make it clear from the beginning what I expected of them. I care about my students and i feel like we should teach them more than just how to dance but also about responsibility, discipline etc and thats where I think this topic would come in. However I could also see the other side which would be staying out of that and leaving it up to the parents. I am curious to see what others think:)

Our musical theatre conservatory kids are required to keep a 3.0 or they are on probation. It is a college preparatory program, if they don't have a good GPA, they will have a hard time getting into the schools with the good theatre programs.

We don't have that policy. Actually, most of our dancers tend to be the better students at school, so it hasn't been a problem. We have on occasion had a parent who used not coming to dance as a punishment for a student who had a bad report card, but not very often.

No I don't, because I don't know the reason for bad academic standngs. Maybe there are troubles at home, at school, with teachers, bullying, undiscovered dyslexia, ...
Dance might be the only thing in life that seems positive for this girl, how could I take that away from her? IF that should happen, I think it is up to parents.

I DO tell all my girls: "Don't waste your time at school, get off it as soon as you can and you need a diploma before you can leave. As sooner as you are finished with that, the sooner you can do the things you want to do. Study hard to get to the next level as soon as possible."

I don't have a policy.
But my competition kids tend to be great students in school....In the last 4 years I've had 2 Valedictorians graduate my program....and I'd say 90% of my comp team are tops in their class/grade.

BUT I have had other students who have come to me saying their not doing good in school and might have to cut back. I've actually sat them down(sometimes parents too) and helped them get organized(schedule, homework help, w/ parents etc)....I don't make it my business unless they come to me and pull me in.

I agree that w/ out all the info you really can't know the reason for bad grades. But I really think there is a line and at some point when do you cross it?

I will always help my students if they come to me for it. But I don't feel its my business UNTIL its my business....ya know?

I don't have a company yet either (just opening this fall). However I plan to have one the following year and will definitely have good academic standing as a requirement. Kids need motivation and parents need help... dance is a great motivator to keep kids out of trouble and to get good grades. Besides if you think about it the school sports have to have requirements.
I definitely would come up with something, even if it is somewhat laxed. Definitely don't require all As but perhaps you could come up with a GPA that they have to stay above... maybe 3.0? After that you could put them on probation.
Just come up with something!

They must maintain passing grades and supply a copy of their report card. School first and foremost.

No way. I have never heard of this in Australia. I severely doubt it would be allowed in Australia as it would be considered discrimination to stop and child from dancing on a team due to school grades.

There are many things that affect grades such as intelligence, learning difficulties, attention deficits, teacher/student personality clashes, a kid who just isnt nessesarily academically inclined. Its these kids who struggle at school who often need something like dance to allow them to succeed and to build their confidence and self esteem.

There are many kids who just don't fit into the mold expected by schools. If a parent chooses to use dance as a form of discipline for children not working hard enough it is their call and something that should be up to the family.

I had it in the team agreement. First of all, we did not invite kids to audition who were not good students, so it was never an issue, but one year, one of our students started to do badly, not failing, and the father said he was pulling her from the competition team because she needed to do better in school. I backed him 100%.

She came to me, crying, that it was not fair and could I convince her father and I told her that I had already spoken to him and agreed that she needed to keep her grades and I will not interfere with a parent in that matter.

I did tell her that if she pulled them back up by the next semester, I might still let her come back (since she already knew the dances but we had a while before competitions came). She did and I allowed her to return. Should I have? I think that it gave her more incentive.

Now she goes to a wonderful college and has good grades there. Her parents never said what grades that she should have, only that they should remain above a C. She was an A student, normally and she did pull them back up.

On top of that, they did cut her back on her social activities. They did not pull her from dance, just the team.

Grades would not keep them out of dance class, only competition team, so I would not be denying them the ability to dance. They do it in school with sports and such, why not in dance where we can instill in them the importance of working hard in school? I never said they had to have A's, only no F's.

Yes, our dancers have to have a C average and no F's. They have to show the director their report card. Dancing is a privilege, and like all privileges entails responsibilities, and at our studio those responsibilities include schoolwork.

My teams policies is that they must have good behavior and do well at home and school. If their parent feels at anytime that their grades or behavior is dropping we can meet and choose for the student to go on probation. The team is a extra activity and a privalege. I've never had a problem before but they all know that school work is just as important.

This doesn't apply to recreational and technique classes.

I wouldn't have a policy on good academic standing - I figure it's up to the parents to police this. If it was a dance program in the academic school setting, then yes as many academic schools have grade policies for school athletes so it would be the same.

I think doing well (relatively speaking) is important. Sure, some students have dyslexia or other learning disorders, and GPA doesn't measure their true ability, but if a student is getting straight Ds and Fs, they really need to find another schooling situation. Maybe take remedial classes, transfer to another school, I don't know what. What do you expect to do in life after high school?

But again, I think that's a parental/family issue, not a dance issue.

I do think it's important for teachers not to dismiss academics, though. I had a teacher (was the SO/director) who would make comments about how school is pointless, a waste of time, etc. (The irony was that her husband was a high school teacher, and her children were bright/intelligent and scored highly on the SATs).

Anyway, it drove me crazy because I thought it sent the wrong message to the students. Not all the students will become professional dancers - some don't have the desire, or the ability. And plus, those types of comments alienates the students who do like school!

I respectfully disagree. I have known parents who do not police their own kids' schooling. We have had a few in our school. One teen, basically took care of everything herself because her parents were too much into their own problems. She kept wanting to be on team, and was for a year, then took a year break, due to not being able to make all of the commitments, but when her grades were dropping and she wanted to come back (she had failed two subjects), I had to step in and tell her school came first, not competition team.

She did bring her grades back up but then decided to do cheering, instead, which also insisted on no failing grades.

Over the past 36 years of teaching, I can give you a huge list of kids where the dance teachers (and others like school teachers, coaches, etc.) stepped in and took up slack where the parents were not doing their job.

I will never be the type who says, "It's not my problem" and when we had our parent meeting yesterday, for all the new kids invited to our company, every single one of them agreed on the idea of having to have good grades remain on team. I never had anyone complain to me about it and it is a tool that can only help parents. Kids may fight with parents but if they are passionate about something and really want it, that may be the catalyst for bringing up the grades.

Kids, and people in general, will live up to... or DOWN to... your expectations of them.

JLL wrote:




Grades would not keep them out of dance class, only competition team, so I would not be denying them the ability to dance. They do it in school with sports and such, why not in dance where we can instill in them the importance of working hard in school? I never said they had to have A's, only no F's.

We do not have anything like this in Australia either. Kids don't need to pass anything to play sport. Kids don't even need to pass to move onto the next grade. You need parent permission to hold a kid back. But there is no expectation here that kids will go to college or university and it isn't needed to get a good job. Only a small percentage of adults have education above Grade 12, its only needed if you want a specific career. I have no tertiary education. There are 10 other teachers at my studio and none of them have any tertiary education. We all have wonderful jobs, wonderful lives and wonderful success in everything we do.

But this is in my country, our answers here will be dictated by our own culture.

^ I must respectfully disagree - I do think that once upon a time it was quite accepted to not receive any tertiary education (eg my mother didn't go to uni - she's now a business bigwig) but I feel times have changed. Your average student will now go to university, and many of these will go onto postgraduate education, or a double-degree (as your average Bachelor is now common enough that Honours, double degree or postgrad is now the new 'Bachelor degree').

I think there are still people dropping out after Yr 10, but most of these people will go on and get some sort of trade certification, if not come back into uni as a non-recent school leaver. Most employers these days won't hire young people into jobs unless they have some sort of tertiary education - niche jobs like dance teaching excepted, of course.

I feel students have to take some sort of responsibility for their grades, not all parents will make school the top priority. But I expect it from my students, even if my SO does not. Why because maintaining certain standards molds you into a good individual.

Now I will put a student on probation my dances if the grades go south, I do this because it's my group my class. Some will disagree but I have never had parent say that's crazy or anything else. And all of the students that have been on prbation with me never let the grades slip again.

Oh, and to be clear most middle & high schoolers have slipping grades due to "relationship problems", I know after teaching in the school system.

Plus now many of the girls that need help in certain subjects now ask teammates for help. And it builds a stronger bond between everyone.

If more people cared more about the overall well being of the students, less of the kids would be getting in trouble i.e. pregnancy, drinking, smoking, snorting(all sorts of things) and running away from home.

There is my two cents!

My younger students- those who are in elementary/middle school- bring me their report cards. If they have a buttload of homework, I have them sit out of a technique class to get it done, but not a choreography class. This way, they can't call me up and say that they have tons of homework and can't come to dance at all and then go do something else instead.

I do think that dancers have better grades in school, as I have yet to encounter anything even close to failing with any of my students, so I haven't had to deal with that issue just yet. However, I think what I would do if a student came in with a D or F grade would be to have them sit out of class for a week and do their work, get caught up, etc. That way they are still at dance and could watch the choreography but they are also getting work done. That is what my teacher has done in the past if someone had bad grades, and it seemed to work fairly well. They brought in a progress report after the week was up showing that they had caught up on their work and their grades had improved.

Unless it effects what they do with us in class then a child's schol life has nothing to do with me.

It would be incredibly difficult to plice anyway as reports are issued at the end of the school year, mostly after we have broken up. The government has just abolished KS3 SATS and I'm not even sure what a school report looks like. My daughter (age 7) has effort and attainment grades but she is in an independent school. A D Grade does not necessarily mean a child is not working hard at school, just that they are not good at that particular subject. A D Grade for one child might mean more than an A Grade for a child who finds academic work easy.

Of course if a child or a parent thinks that dance is affecting their schoolwork that is a different matter. Also if a child is taking partin a public performance they have to have a licence which involves a headteachers report but they don;t have to have gained any particulr grade/level. just that they are working hard according to their ability.

Yeah, I was going to ask how do you police it? Do you require students to bring in report cards? How about children who are homeschooled? (Although I suppose they have some kind of grade system as many of them are enrolled in correspondence or online schools).

I would also think technique class would be more important to take (and skip choreography if they have too much homework)?

I'm not sure if I think everyone who has the ability should go to college, but that's a different topic. (I'd probably say yes, if you can, then why not? Or at least some secondary education, like a trade/technical school).

In our area (metropolitan city/suburb in the United States), I'd say that most of our dancers are in the middle-class socioeconomic class and there is a general expectation from parents of our dancers that their children go to college (if they don't join a pro company first, that is). It's different for other studios, I'm sure, depending on the makeup of the studio.

I can think of only 1 time in the past 10+ years where a mom pulled her daughter from the performing company because her report card grades were low. The daughter was about 16 at the time - eventually ended up going to the top public univ in California. Since the studio doesn't regularly monitor grades, I have no idea how students are doing academically - but no one has dropped out (aside from the aforementioned girl).

The parents automatically sent or emailed a copy. I never had to ask, honestly. When, at my new job, we had the parents' meeting, they liked the idea, as it is a tool for them to keep their kids on their toes, too. Nothing like kids knowing that they must work hard to remain in the company.

See, I do not just teach the kids dance, I also teach the whole person. I have saved letters, cards and emails from students and parents who have thanked me for having high expectations of them as human beings. Most will not be dancers, but they will all be adults (hopefully) and it DOES take a village to raise a child.

I expect them to be responsible and they live up to my expectations.
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JLL you and I are on the same page, I am not just trying to teach dancers but great human beings. I want them to know there are rewards and consequences for everything, the better the students do in school the better life is for most of them in my case.

Everytime one of my students got a bad grade they heard it from the parents, then mom and dad called or emailed me. Then I pull the student to the side letting them know I expect more from them, and if they can remember 12 dances of intense choreography then they can do just fine in school.

And I have never had another problem one time is all it takes, I always find out about the grades from the parents without asking. They share this with me because they one I am a major part of their childs life.

Yes, we probably have as great an influence on kids as their parents because many of them we teach from very young through college. Even ones who started later or ended early, they see us a lot.

I remember parents telling me, "You see my daughter/son more than I do."

Many kids who get low grades are not bad students, they just don't like school. It is a long boring day for kids (especially the really smart ones. Sometimes they just need motivation. As teachers and SOs we can provide that motivation. The GPA requirement does not have to be high - 3.0 with no Fs is not hard to attain. Heck, even a 2.5 is good enough for most state schools. But if you are training students who want to go on to study in college, they need the good grades to get into the college/university, not just the talent to get in the dance program. If you are really preparing kids for a career in dance or theatre, they need to be prepared for the post high schoool training that they may need.

What does a 3.o or a 2.5 mean?