Family policies

We ask your written permission before we share any photo of your child, on this site, in newsletters or on social media, and you can change your answer at any time. We never put a child's name with a photo, and the photos on this site are examples until we replace them with our own.

Parents of ages 3 to 5 stay in the building and wait in the family room, which has a window onto Studio A. The sixth week of every session is a watch week: families sit along the studio wall and watch the class. On other days we keep the door closed so dancers can hear their teacher, and the window stays open to you. Recital seating is open, with the first two rows kept for families of the preschool classes. Photos and video of your own dancer from your seat are welcome, without flash.

Ages 3 to 5 wear a leotard or a plain top with leggings or a skirt, and ballet slippers or bare feet. For ballet at 6 and up, a leotard and tights; for jazz and hip hop, a fitted top with leggings or shorts, and clean sneakers that stay in the studio. Hair is up and off the neck, and jewelry stays at home apart from stud earrings. Socks are fine for the first weeks, and we will tell you when shoes are needed. We take costume sizes in person, in the winter.

Please keep your dancer home with a fever, vomiting or diarrhea, and until they have been well for a full day. A cough that keeps them from keeping up is a good reason to rest, too. Text or call the studio and we will tell you how a missed class can be made up.

A grown-up brings and collects every dancer in ages 3 to 5, and the teacher hands each child to the person who came with them. For older dancers, the door opens ten minutes before class, and we ask you to tell us who is collecting. We ask for ID from anyone we haven't met, and we will wait with a dancer until their grown-up arrives.

Text or call the studio when your dancer will miss a class. A missed class can be made up in another class of the same level, or the level just below it, within the same session; book it at the front desk or by message. A dancer who arrives after warm-up joins quietly, and if class is well under way we will ask you to come back next week.

We close the week of Thanksgiving, for the winter holidays and for one week in spring that follows the area schools. When the area schools close for snow, we close, and we text every family that morning. A missed week because of weather is made up with a class later in the session.

Dancers keep phones in their bags during class. We don't photograph or film class, apart from watch weeks, when you are welcome to film your own dancer from the wall. Please keep other children out of your shots.