It’s that time of year again! If you’re like us, you’re finding it hard to believe that summer is over and it’s time for school already. We have 2 new Studio Go babies, 3 new teachers, 1 new program (Yoga), 8 new locations, and we’ve expanded into a new market (Chattanooga). It’s a lot of change and we’re excited about the possibilities in 2016-2017.
We recently had our annual Fall Meeting at The Georgian Terrace. It’s always great to get together, and we love to discuss ways to make our classes and programs even better. One of the things we’re most excited about this year is new technology for our teachers! This year everyone was given their own iPad Mini. This is a great resource and will give teachers access to 1000’s of songs to choose from for class. Each month our Artistic Director will push out new music to the devices as well. This is perfect for our monthly theme. In addition to music, we provide training videos on the devices, content teachers can use/show in class, and teachers are able to take rolls that are automatically sent to our office.
This is just another small way that we try to stay current with trends today. We believe that by staying current we are providing a better service to our customers, as well as staying on the forefront of our industry.
What else is new? We continue to modify and improve our syllabi. This summer Mrs. Lauren, our Artistic Director, and I revamped our teacher manuals. There are monthly and annual benchmarks to ensure that each class is learning at an appropriate pace. The teachers have creative reign day-to-day and week-to-week, but now have set goals that they are to achieve. This will help us streamline communication with parents so that you have a better idea of some things your child is working on in class.
We’ve also added a dance tote to be included in our registration fees. One of the most frequent things we hear from parents or locations is that children misplace their dance attire. While this won’t eliminate the issue, we hope that each child having their own Studio Go dance tote to take to class will cut down on some of the occurrences. As always, labeling your child’s belongings is the best solution!
You now have the option to pay your tuition monthly, semesterly or annually at most locations (a few may vary). The annual option provides you with a 10% discount. We are continuously working to improve upon other areas of the business. New coloring sheets and activities will be created to go along with our monthly lesson themes. We’re working on our social media presence, as well as this blog and our “Dancing Cover-to-Cover”monthly book suggestion. The goal is to provide a peek into the classroom, as well as add value outside of dance class. Our developers are working on making enhancements to the parent portal to offer more information and options to our customers as well.
Our office and staff are constantly evaluating the business and we love feedback from parents, schools, and students about ways to improve. We strive to provide a value to our customers that they couldn’t get anywhere else. After all, it isn’t about being the biggest, it’s about being the best! If you have any suggestions, we are always open to feedback.
We look forward to rolling out some of these new enhancements, and we look forward to seeing how else we can improve. 2016-2017 is going to be our best year yet and we can’t wait to share it with you!
Happy Dancing,
Leah