DEA Music & Art Reflects on 2020 and Looks Ahead To a Year of Growth in 2021

2020 was quite the year for the education industry. The onset of COVID-19 forced schools across the country to close their doors and pivot from the traditional, in-person learning to e-learning, and in some cases, a hybrid approach. 

Magi Kapllani, founder of the confidence-boosting music and art school DEA Music & Art — otherwise known as Dizdari Education Academy — reflected on the past year: the challenges the school of the arts has been faced with and how it overcame them, along with some of its big achievements. 

Kapllani is living proof that your circumstances don’t define you but how you react and shift to them does. When COVID hit, she shifted gears and offered Pop Idol, Rock Band, Virtuosi, Visual Arts, Chorus, Musical Theatre and one-on-one instrument lessons - some online - at DEA Music & Art. And, the inclusion of distance learning allowed the academy to extend its reach to students across the country rather than limit lessons to DEA Music & Arts East Coast location. The school also offered free Kahoot! game days twice per week to keep students engaged and excited about music and art.

“Whether our students were enrolled in virtual or online classes, everyone was invited to a Zoom meeting two times a week to participate in Kahoot! games to engage students during the pandemic. It’s been a great way to make music and arts education even more fun — our teachers could set up the games so that we were asking things like how many music notes are on a keyboard or which composer wrote this tune,” Kapllani said. “We used Kahoot! to engage our staff members as well while adding a little competition into the mix for our teachers. This has allowed us to not forget who we are at DEA and keep our community together.”

But Kapllani didn’t stop there. In the fall, when it was still deemed unsafe for the many students to go back to the classroom, Kapllani was able to safely open her doors to offer in-person virtual learning support in a program she called micro-schooling.

“We invited parents to drop their kids off at our studios — which have all of the social distancing and sanitation protocols in place — where our staff can help students connect to their virtual classroom and assist with additional work,” said Kapllani. 

And while micro-schooling has introduced a world of benefits for students adjusting to virtual classes, it’s also been a relief to working parents who have been struggling to balance homeschooling with their own workload.

“Micro-schooling can make life easier for working parents. Plus, during the downtime, we have the expertise to provide fun activities,” she continued.

Half the fun of enrolling students in a performing arts school is the much-anticipated recitals and performances, and even during a pandemic, Kapllani was adamant about putting on a show to remember. This year, the academy hosted its first virtual recital, and to no surprise, it was celebrated by both students and parents alike. 

“I received so many messages from parents telling us how much their kids needed it and how great it was to see,” said Kapllani. “It is so great to see how much the kids and parents put into it even though they were at home.”

This past year, Kapllani also decided to franchise DEA Music & Art, with plans to start expanding on the East Coast. Kapllani herself lives in New York and wants to keep the first locations nearby so she can be available to help new franchisees through the process of opening and help troubleshoot any issues that come up. She hopes to be as involved with her franchisees as possible to provide them with the support they need to succeed.

Looking to 2021, Kapllani would like to sign 20 new franchise-owned locations throughout New York and New Jersey, where there are currently unlimited territories available.

The start-up fees range from $136,700 to $215,400, including the initial franchise fee of $39,000. For more information, visit: https://franchise.deamusicandart.com.