The Osborn School District Ballet Program offers professionally oriented ballet training after school for boys and girls with related studies, activities and fieldtrips. Currently in its eighth year, it has contributed to improved student achievement and added additional depth and breadth of education and experience. The program annually attracts in excess of 60 fourth through sixth graders from Clarendon School with an additional 50 third grade students from sister school Encanto and continuing seventh and eighth grade students from Osborn Middle School.

Recognized by the Arizona School Boards Association, the Osborn Ballet Program received the first place Golden Bell Award for schools programs in Arizona in 2009. The program was also recognized by the Arizona Educational Foundation as an A+ Exemplary Program in the spring of 2009. These awards are examples of the quality programming which contribute to well-rounded student growth in the arts, academics, and social development. The overarching goal of the program is to make professionally oriented ballet training available to students who do not have access to it, while developing students’ capability to actively pursue their goals and successfully avail themselves of further opportunity. This is the fourth year students have earned the opportunity to audition and secure roles in Ballet Arizona’s Nutcracker. To date, forty-two students have danced with the professional company-- some for a third time.

The program includes academic work and Nutrition classes in addition to dance study. Beginning dancers attend one-to-two-hours per week, in separate boys’ and girls’ sections. More advanced students attend up to five days per week. The Ballet program curriculum consists of classical ballet technique, based on the Russian, French and Italian schools. Instruction includes terminology (in the French language), history and development of ballet and western dance with general historical background as a reference for understanding and context. Instruction also includes an introduction to music as it pertains to training, history and performances. The Ballet Program addresses the Arizona Department of Education Arts standards in the area of dance. All students participate in extra-curricular studies, read from the ballet library, and can participate in supervised study hall, tutoring, and homework support.

We anticipate that all participants benefit from ballet training, with improved fitness, coordination, concentration, confidence, cultural education, and an opportunity to meet and consider other avenues and possibilities. Older students assist younger students to prepare for class. As students advance out of children’s roles, they become junior volunteers backstage at Ballet Arizona’s Nutcracker, assisting younger students to prepare for performances, helping with hair, costumes, sorting dance attire, etc. Self-reliance and leadership are skills emphasized in the Ballet Program as students not only learn stagecraft and group leadership skills to support their own performances; they also learn to coordinate car pools so that they can be dependable for their commitments.

The program has served more than 670 students since its inception in the fall of 2003. Many of the students served would not be able to afford the cost of professionally oriented dance instruction. The Osborn Ballet Program is offered exclusively to Osborn students for an annual fee of $2 and is supported by Tax Credit donations, the Osborn Educational Foundation, and the 21st Century Community Learning Center after-school grant.