January 11, 2012

A little poll:You are the skating director. A 7th grade girl returns to LTS afterquitting in 3rd grade. In 3rd grade she had just completed Basic 7. Yourlevels are all mixed ages, but your program does tend to promote easily,not requiring kids to retake levels for mastery. What level do you put herin?A) Basic 7 - she probably needs a refresherB) Basic 8 - she has passed Basic 7C) Freestyle 1 - she is too old for basic skillsD) Another specific level.E) I would evaluate her skating and place her in the appropriate level,which means she may need to repeat a level she already took.Did you choose E? I would have chosen E.For our rink, the correct answer is D. And the other level is "Freestyle4". I'm thinking no one chose freestyle 4And yet, that is the decision our skating director came to. (My guess isthe parents said "we want lessons at 6:15" and this was the best optionbecause Burton's all level class is very full, Sergei only teaches his ownstudents, and Freestyle 4 only has 2 of us. The skating director probablyshould have put her into our class, but handed the instructor Basic 7papers for her, maybe even lower...)