Assessment in the K-12 arena is a high priority and instilled requirement. It seems every which way you turn students are always being evaluated for their work as a way to assure the state or national “standard” is being met. The studio sector however is a different animal. With that said, how do you, as studio directors, find a diplomatic way of evaluating paying customers to provide useful feedback for student development? It’s a slippery slope but a necessary one at that for a couple of reasons.
First, parents want to know about their children’s progress; particularly when it comes time to advancing students, picking new company members, etc. If a child is being held back because they simply are not ready, you need to have a rubric to show parents and the dancers how you’ve come to this decision. If they can’t see it tangibly, it’s going to seem like you and your faculty are pulling the decision out of thin air. This can open a whole can of worms, so it’s important to cover your bases professionally. You need to substantiate it. More importantly, it is a credible way of showing your dancers exactly where they are excelling and where there is room for improvement. It creates a dialogue so everyone is on the same page. It also allows you to keep a log season after season of whether this dancer is really making strides or maybe has plateaued in terms of their progress and/ or desire.
If you don’t feel that sharing student evaluations is the best fit for your studio, then another way to go about it is to have your teachers do evaluations merely as a guide for yourselves. If a parent then questions the recommendations for the following year and wants to call a meeting to discuss it, you can then present the evaluations to review how these decisions were made. Often times, once a parent hears the explanation while seeing the varying categories (if the evaluation form is thorough enough,) they will usually have a far better time understanding your comments, particularly if faculty across the board is consistent. They will also have an easier time talking about it with their child. Keep in mind however a student may fare better in one genre than the other. Explaining why they might advance in one area and not the other for the following year may come up and be questioned as well. This might be a good point in the meeting to bring in each teacher to lend their thoughts on the issue to lessen confusion for the parent.
While you still may encounter those parents that disagree with the assessment, you must always kindly, yet authoritatively remind them that you have their child’s best interest and progress at heart. You and your teachers are the professionals and ultimately know what is best, so don’t be afraid to assert that. There is a reason they entrusted you with their child’s dance training, so remember that! If the conflict persists with no end in sight, offer to do your own observations as well over so many weeks and take it from there. That might be a middle ground to compromise at that moment. However, be very cautious that you are not undermining the opinions of your teachers who you entrusted to evaluate these same students. Remind parents that both you and the teacher will discuss it after a few weeks, months, etc. and see if there is any cause for rethinking the initial decision. Also let parents know that you do respect the opinions of your teachers and would be very surprised if they are off the mark. You must always represent a united front to instill that continuity and consistency you wish for amongst your students!
Next week on the DTW Blog, we'll look at how to develop simple evaluation forms for optimal growth, that are effective, time efficient and simple to understand for students and parents.
Good luck!
See you in the dance studio,
Jess
