Tag: School Vacation Week

Spend February vacation at the Cape Ann YMCA perfecting your acting and performance skills!!

Posted on by Catherine

Reminder from Cape Ann YMCA

“It is official. We have a terrific schedule of February Vacation Acting, Scene Study and Performance Classes for ALL ages at the Cape Ann YMCA! Classes are divided by age. We have a class for 5 to 9 year olds and a class for 10 to 17 year olds.”

  • Acting Intensive and Scene Study Workshop for 10 to 17 year olds An intensive professional theatre training program designed to provide young people with an outlet to nurture their creative potential through developing self-confidence, communication and teamwork skills to use in their daily life as well as introducing them to the skills necessary for professional theater and performance. The intensive 4-day workshop will include audition preparation,  character preparation, scene study, storytelling, public speaking and confidence building training. Sign up here
  • Professional Acting Basics for 5 to 9 year olds!
    A four day intensive workshop is an introduction to the basics of professional acting and performance for ages 5 to 9 years old. Learn acting, develop stage presence and build self-confidence through theatre games, pantomime, improvisation, vocal and physical expression, scene study and storytelling. Sign up here

Both classes are taught by Gloucester native Heid Dallin, an award-winning professional actress.

According to Dallin who recently wrapped up directing Annie Jr at Manchester Essex Middle School,

“After the incredible excitement I saw from young people on the stage and in the audience at the performances of Annie Jr it was clear that live theatre is back for young people on Cape Ann. They are eager to get back on the stage and perform! And now they can spend their February vacation acting!”

-YMCA of the North Shore Theatre Specialist Heidi Dallin

courtesy photos

Contact Dallin at 978-729-1094 or dallinh@northshoreymca.org with questions

Joey C’s Proposal For Changing School Vacation Week Locally

Posted on by Joey Ciaramitaro

Kids missing school isn’t a good thing.  It’s not good for the students.  Not good for the teachers who have their performance tied to standardized testing.  Not good for education in general.  I’m fairly certain we can all agree on that.

With all public schools taking the same exact school vacation week off what it has created in the travel industry is a huge demand all at once and if anyone wants to travel during school vacation week prices not only double, but they often times triple or quadruple.

So parents who would like to take their kids away often times take their kids out a week before or a week after a winter vacation and once those kids are in third grade or so they can lose a fundamental building block of their education.   Teachers whose job performance are increasingly tied to state standardized test scores are penalized for children’s absence if they aren’t there to learn and those students bring their average test scores down.

So I ask, why not just move school vacation week forward or back a week so we don’t have to compete with the entire state for flights to Orlando or some other vacation destination at the very same time? 

You would have better attendance because parents wouldn’t pick an off school vacation week to go away.

The people who wouldn’t take their kids out of school on an off school vacation week might be able to afford to take their children away if every public school district in the State didn’t take the same exact week off.

Teachers would benefit from higher attendance rates and presumably higher standardized test scores because the kids would be in class.

I see it as a win all the way around.