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STUDIO POLICY

I. Admission.

Reading skills. The Studio admits children from the age of nine who can read in Russian. Those children who are too young to study in the Studio or who cannot read Russian will be referred to an appropriate program which will help them develop the Russian language skills necessary for their admission to the Studio. To be considered for a new junior class in September, we recommend that you contact us in May/June of the previous academic year. During the school year we occasionally have openings in existing classes (see “Новости”).

If your child does not read fluently in Russian, but loves reading in English, it may be possible to admit him/her to the program. Please call us to learn about our method, which allows us to teach literature to slower readers of Russian while maintaining a challenge for children whose Russian is very advanced.

Admission Process.

·To learn more about the program you can:

- read information posted on our website www.NRLDS.com;

- call Nina Goldmakher (617)527-7168;

- request by e-mail a list of those alumni (or their parents) who are willing to talk to you about their experience with our program;

- request by e-mail samples of the programs of our past drama and poetry performances;

- attend our next drama and poetry performance (see “Новости”) in order to see our students’ achievements in Russian and get a feel for the Studio’s spirit;

- observe a few classes – please call us to arrange.

·If you choose to proceed, call the Studio to schedule an interview for your child.

II. Schedule and Tuition.

Each academic year is divided in two semesters, the fall semester is from September to January, and the spring semester is from February to June. There are from 17 to 19 lessons in each semester. The schedule generally corresponds to schedules of Massachusetts’ public schools. - except for the snow days - see below, Veteran’s Day, and some religious holidays which may be teaching days in the studio while they are not teaching days in some public schools. With the exception of the fall semester of the first year class, the tuition should be paid in full for the semester. In case of financial hardships the arrangements can be made for paying tuition in several installments. Depending on the space availability in a certain class, the Studio usually allows new students to have a trial period for one month.

III. Interruption of studies. Tuition Refunds.

1. Interruption of studies requested by parents.

If a student drops off from the studio before the end of a semester, the remainder of his/her semester tuition may or may not be refunded. Tuition refund can be made with two weeks advanced notice until October 15 for the fall semester and until March 1 for the spring semester - if no role in the spring drama performance has been assigned. Two weeks notice means that if you gave a notice on October 1st, you are responsible for payments up to October 15-th, i.e. for two more classes. The percentage of the tuition refunded will be proportional to the number of classes not taken minus $20 handling fee. Exception: if a student asked for a part in the spring drama performance, was subsequently granted a role, and then decided to quit the studio, an unused portion of his/her spring tuition is NOT refundable.

2. Interruption of studies requested by the Studio.

The Studio reserves the right to expel a student whose presence is disruptive for the educational process or is in any way harmful to other students or teachers, as well as for repeated violations of the studio rules. In this case, the Studio will refund the unused portion of the semester tuition in full.

IV. The Class Schedule and Attendance

Try to minimize absences. Even if you do not plan to take a make-up, parents should give Nina an advanced notice about the child's absence. In case of a sudden illness, please, warn Nina as soon as possible.

V. Make-up lessons. No tuition refunds are given for missed lessons. A student can take make-ups by attending a class with one of the other groups. Please, schedule your make-up with Nina in advance.

VI. Arrivals and Pick-Ups. PLEASE DO NOT PARK YOUR CAR ON PELHAM STREET or ON CRESCENT STREET EVEN IF YOU ARE SITTING IN IT. The children should be dropped off at and picked up from the CVS parking lot at the beginning of Pelham street, they should walk alone or with you to/from my house.

VII. Early Arrivals/ Late Pick-ups. If you brought your child significantly earlier, please wait in the CVS parking lot in your car until 5 minutes before the class. My neighbors complain if my students run around and yell. Running around on the street is dangerous. For the same reasons, please pick up your child on time.

VIII. Books and Materials

1) Each student must bring a folder with pockets to each class, usually those who do not bring a folder to the class, lose the texts.

2) Often I send a story or a play as an attachment or as a link to a web page. I do not charge for materials, instead I ask you to take responsibility for printing out a hard copy. Reading from the screen at home does not help because we need each text for analysis in class – sorry, no individual laptops in class are allowed.

3) If a student reads some books in English translation, it is his/her responsibility to get a book from the library.

4) A text which we are currently reading must be brought to each class.

5) We use pencils in class. Pens are prohibited: my armchairs are sometimes used as drawing pads, and pen marks are hard to clean.

IX. Home assignments are sent by e-mail, usually next day after each lesson. The students in each class have different speeds of reading in Russian. The size of home reading assignments is tailored to the speed of faster readers. In older classes, in order to enable all students to participate in class discussions, some of the slower readers of Russian can do part of their reading assignments at home in English translation. Instead, the parents may choose to read part of each assignment aloud to their child. The choice of language is up to each family. However, it is essential that at least part of each assignment is read in Russian by the student (at least 15 pages per week).

X. Theater Component

The theater component of the studies will be present in the form of dramatic readings of plays in class. The students practice their parts by reading them at home in advance. They get a link to an electronic text of the play by e-mail. In order to facilitate the class reading of a play each parent should make sure that his/her child brings a paper copy of the play to class.

XI. Performance Opportunity for the Studio’s Students*

The studio focuses on studying literature. However, some students are interested in performing opportunities which are offered to all students starting from their class’ second year in the studio**. Performances happen in the spring semester; the regular literature lessons will be interrupted for about 5-6 weeks to prepare the performance. A performance fee will be charged to cover costs. All students can recite poetry rehearsed by Nina. The students can apply for participating in a theater workshop with the stage director Michael Redko. The roles are distributed by audition with Michael. If a role is granted, staging of a scene takes 3 to 7 rehearsals with M. Redko on a special schedule. The drama performance is contingent upon having a group of parents who are willing to help with scheduling and managing rehearsals on a volunteer basis.

*) Sometimes, per request of our stage director, we invite our former students to participate in the drama performance. **) Since our theater depends on the work of our parents-volunteers, the roles in a June drama performance may be offered to those first year students whose parents have had extensive experience in stage management for the studio theater in the past.

XII. Parent Conferences.

Since Nina teaches in the late afternoons and evenings, the best time to reach her for discussing a student's performance is before 2 pm on a weekday (except Friday), best between 9:30 am and 11 am. You can also always leave a message (with your daytime phone number), and Nina will return your call promptly.

XIII. Snow Emergency.

In case of snow please check your e-mail before calling (617)527-7168. If the class is canceled, the cancellation message will be sent by e-mail. We will follow in our cancellation decisions some music or math schools (such as Longy School of Music or Russian School of Mathematics) which run their programs on evenings and Saturdays and have many students coming from far away. In case of cancellation a make-up may be offered at the end of the school year. Usually we are not able to have 100% attendance at a make-up lesson. Although we will do our best to satisfy everybody’s scheduling needs, we will go ahead with a make-up class as soon as we can have about 75% attendance. Also, a lost class may be made-up by extending several other lessons by 20-30 minutes.

XIV. Liability.

1. The Studio will not accept responsibility for accidents, illness, theft or loss of personal belongings occurring at the Studio during, before and after the classes or at the Studio’s organized activities (picnics, concerts, rehearsals, and such).

2. The Studio will not be held liable for its failure to provide any service if that failure is caused directly or indirectly by illness of teachers, City, State (or Government) policy and procedures, or natural disaster.