How Does Your Ballet Studio Take Attendance/Role?

[u/RecommendationSad576]

Hello Fellow Ballet Dancers,

I’m curious how different studios keep track of attendance. At my old place, the front desk person would come and take attendance via pen and paper at the start of class; however, at another studio I visited, they had a sign-in sheet at the front desk.

If you dance regularly, how does your studio handle role? Do teachers call out names? Does everyone swipe/sign in, or is it more relaxed?

I’d love to hear what’s worked (or not worked) in your experience, especially if your studio has a system that makes things easier for teachers and dancers alike.

[u/messysagittarius]

My studio has volunteers check everyone in on MindBody (usually they choose a volunteer who already takes the class regularly, or someone who lives close by in a pinch). We don't really have a front desk or reception, the entire space is the studio.

[u/RecommendationSad576 → u/messysagittarius]

I'm considering creating a software solution to streamline taking attendance for dance studios. This would be a single tool that teachers or studio owners can use to take attendance within 30 seconds, as well as gather data on student retention, average class size, absences, and other key metrics. Do you think this is worth doing? I see many comments of studios using Mindbody, MemberMeister, and JackRabbit. They all seem like robust systems; however, it seems like they do everything, but attendance could be optimized.

Let me know your thoughts.

[u/dani-winks → u/RecommendationSad576]

The real challenge is the software people use do SO much other stuff as well, so studios don't just need check in software, they need class registration and management software, which usually also includes things like scheduling and payroll and waivers and more. There's always room in the marketplace for a new solution, but you'll be competing for some heavy hitters one just one very small piece of functionality.

Source: used to work for a class registration/management software company

[u/Anon_819]

Teacher checks off names in a notebook while we're at the barre between exercises.

[u/Tiny-firefly]

One studio does mindbody for the open classes and then pen and paper for intro series.

The other studio does a check list for the series classes. I think they also do mindbody for the drop ins

[u/Slight-Brush]

MemberMeister

[u/Gold-Vanilla5591]

In the 2000s and 2010s we had a physical list of every student in the class. The teacher would just take attendance in alphabetical order as soon as everyone filed in. I would imagine nowadays it would be electronic but I wouldn’t be surprised if a few schools did this.

As an adult my studio used MindBody

[u/sarabelham]

The teachers at my small local studio do it through an app or online on their phones. The only time they call out names is if there are multiple students they don’t know, so they can learn who belongs to each name.

The biggest studio in town has a front desk person that checks you in online.

[u/SunkenSaltySiren]

JackRabbit

[u/Diabloceratops]

I teach at two studios.

At one the front desk lady checks them in.

At the other I have a webpage I mark attendance on and it has pictures of the children which is helpful when you are still learning names. (they use studio director).

[u/labubu-boiler]

We use mindbody to sign up for the class, then check in on an iPad at reception upon arrival. 

[u/TigerFilly → u/labubu-boiler]

Same! And the teacher uses her phone to see how many people she should have and then counts us. Tonight there were 17 for class.

[u/PlausiblePigeon]

One studio has either the front desk person or the owner that checks people in on the computer as they arrive. After the first class or two they recognize everyone and you don’t even have to say anything, they just silently check people off as they come in, or if there’s nobody manning the desk I’ll see the owner peek in the window later and do attendance.

The other uses jackrabbit for registration so I assume she does attendance on there, but she knows everyone so I guess she just checks people off later from memory or does it on the iPad she uses for the music while we’re warming up.

[u/Smooth-Sprinkles-479]

mine just has the TA call out names 🤷‍♀️

[u/Unlikely_Scholar_807]

We check ourselves in at the front desk for adult and teen classes. Teachers check in the littles.

[u/CrookedBanister]

We check in with a front desk person as we enter (registration itself is thru mindbody)

[u/Imaginary-Credit-843]

At my school one of the office people will come and look in the window during class and take attendance that way. It is super nice to not have the class be disrupted for role.

[u/NaomiPommerel]

One studio we walk past the reception and they tick us off as we arrive. The other studio is a different floor plan and she ticks the list as we're waiting at the barre

[u/No-Complaint5535]

We use manual sign-in sheets at the front desk alongside Mindbody, and we also count.

So typically, signing in goes like this:

1. Come to the front desk and sign your first and last name on the sign-in sheet. We will ask you to swipe on our scanner to bring your profile up on Mindbody, or we will just look you up by name if you don't have the card.

2. Go get ready for class and go to the studio.

3. Within the first 15 minutes of class, a desk staff member will pop in quietly to take a head count (or do it through the window).

4. If the signatures and the mindbody counts add up, but the class is either missing or has too many people, we will unfortunately have to then stop the class and ask if anyone forgot to sign in (usually a member who comes all the time and takes multiple classes will just have forgotten to come back to the desk at some point). If the counts are still off, we then take manual attendance until we're left with the outstanding attendee.

We have a really busy studio, at peak, we can have 5 classes running at the same time. So sometimes when multiple classes are signing in at once and the front desk is mayhem, people will accidentally sign into the wrong sheet or a later class time with the same teacher, etc.

Because we record it in 3 places, it makes it easy for us to fiddle around and make sense of errors like that without having to interrupt any classes. We only disrupt the class if we can't figure it out.

[u/elindranyth]

My studio uses akada for registration and attendance. The first few weeks all teachers will call out names as they learn the names of the students who are new to their class. After that, most will check people off as we settling into our spots, but some will set the first exercise and then go through the list while we get started.