Transcription
Are you tired of families calling you 15 minutes before their lesson and telling you they need to reschedule? Sounds to me like you need a studio policy that sticks.
I'm Miss Deb, children's author, songwriter, and music teacher to babies, toddlers, and preschoolers, and I am here to help you grow your little musicians and build your studios up. Create a happy working environment for you. It can be a lonely world being a private music teacher. You don't necessarily have a whole team around you. Most private teachers are self-employed; some of them work within a studio. I'm one of those ones who's self-employed, and yeah, I feel lonely. I feel lonely all the time. That's why I talk so much to myself.
Today, I'm hoping that I'm talking to you and that you find some of my info helpful. If you do find it helpful, please click that little like button and subscribe so you can get more videos like this to help you in your teaching journey.
Today, we're talking about all things studio policy, and we are going to get you started on creating one that makes sense, that's clear, and that has none of those little loopholes in it. It's a lonely world teaching for yourself. Sure, you have your families that come to lessons every week, but you don't really have many people to bounce ideas off.
So my first suggestion is to reach out to the local music teaching associations in your neighborhood, in your area. It's hard to say where you're from. I live in Canada, so I'm part of the BC Registered Music Teachers Association, which is part of the Canadian Federation of Music Teachers that's all across Canada.
So I actually am self-employed, but I do belong to a large group of people that I can ask questions to, have resources, and generate leads for new students. So I really highly suggest that.
Now, if you're going to be teaching on your own, self-employed, you're going to want that policy so that you don't get walked over. Everybody has a story to tell. Every teacher—I don't think there's one teacher out there who has not been affected by a lesson cancellation or a sick child, or maybe you were sick yourself and you needed to reschedule.
These situations can be really tricky if you don't have a good solid studio policy set up before lessons even begin. It's really important that you give that studio policy to each family before they register for lessons, and you communicate exactly what it means.
I like to have a spot where parents sign and write the date, and we write their name. This keeps them accountable to everything that's on that page. If you don't have them sign it, they're just going to crumple it up and put it in the garbage. They won't read it. So you got to make sure they read it. By signing it, they will read it. They don't want to sign their name on anything until they know the content.
Okay, first thing that you're going to want to state on the top: I would put your name or your studio name, whatever it's called, and the date—so the year that this is applicable for. I redo my policies every year. Sometimes there are little things that happen, like pandemics, where I need to revisit that studio policy and maybe tweak a few things. So always want to have the year on top so that you know when this policy is good for.
I like to keep mine organized in kind of categories, and that's what I'm going to show you how to do. So let's dive in. The first section is lesson fees and payment options. Clearly outline how much it is per lesson. Some people decide to charge for their lessons per lesson; other teachers choose to do it per semester or per school year. That's all something that you need to consider in your own studio. What will work for you? How do you like that?
Okay, but you need to make your intentions very clear on this form. This is why I do a year's worth of lessons, which for me follows the school year from September till June. I count up all the lessons for each day of the week.
So say little Molly has her lessons on Mondays. Well, Mondays are going to have much fewer lessons than Tuesdays because Mondays have holidays. So you have to account for all of those little things—those questions that your students are going to ask.
Well, how come we don't have a lesson today? Oh, because it's a holiday. Oh, but don't worry, you didn't get charged. Okay, so if you don't have that in your policy, they won't know that. They won't understand what you're talking about. This is why communication is key.
Okay, so the way I like to do it: I make up a school calendar from the beginning of September until June, like I say, for the last week of classes. I just stop it then. I add up all the lesson days for Mondays, for Tuesdays, for Wednesdays, for Thursdays. I only teach Monday to Thursday, so that's as far as I'll explain.
But if maybe you teach lessons on Saturdays, you want to make sure that you know exactly how many lessons there are for each day of the week that your student comes on because you're going to want that in the contract.
Okay, now the next question is: How will people pay your fees? Well, they ask, "Can I pay in a check? Can I give you cash? How can I pay you? Can I pay with my credit card? Can I pay with PayPal? Can I pay you in Bitcoin?" Those are important answers too.
Personally, by taking cash, it can set you up for failure, and I'm sure some of you already know that because people don't always remember to pay on time, and sometimes they won't pay on time, and they'll keep coming, which you want them to keep coming. But if they keep coming and they're not paying, then it's a really awkward situation.
So for me, what I've always done is I ask them if they would like to pay monthly. Now, if they want to pay monthly, this makes it more affordable for families. Then they will pay the full amount on the first day of every month that there's lessons.
So there will be a check for September 1st, October 1st, November, December, January, February, March, April, May, June. Okay, so we'll end up with a big folder of everybody's checks, and I will hold on to them for the entire year so they're ready to go. So I just have to deposit them.
Okay, so that's one way—checks. In Canada, Interac payments are really common. The e-transfer, I'm not too sure how common they are in other areas, but those are super helpful too because people can set that up on their bank to automatically debit their own account and get sent to your teacher, right?
Which is really awesome because then it's not too many steps to do. You just get your money paid. But sometimes people don't put those in as a recurring payment. Sometimes they just pay once a month, and they don't pay you on time, and sometimes they might quit before they pay you your full amount or something like that.
So like I said, this is why you want them to sign that studio policy. Okay, another way that many of my students pay: some of them will pay for the full year up front. They'll pay in one check or one e-transfer. Some of them want to pay two times per year, so then they pay in September and they pay in February.
So you want to offer families as many options so that it fits their budget, and that way you have more families that are able to participate in lessons because they can afford it. Okay, so that's a good thing to outline in that first comment.
Option one is monthly payments. Option two: monthly payments by e-transfer, or you know, full tuition in full, that sort of thing. Now, sometimes tuition in full can be a bit of a problem. What happens if something happens to you as a teacher and you cannot complete the full year of teaching, and you've already taken their full money, right?
Well, you have to pay them back. So you know, you got to be careful. You got to know what you're doing and protect yourself and protect your customers. Don't spend all their money when they send it to you in the beginning of the year. You should have that set up in a separate account where you debit those amounts per month.
Okay, now next, please make checks payable to Deborah Crawl or Tiny Jingles Music Studio or whatever. I always had people write checks out to my personal name because if they wrote it to my business account, I had to deposit them to my business account, which then charged me for every deposit I made.
But if I deposited into my personal account—which I had a separate personal account for my music stuff—then I didn't get charged per deposit. So that's a little tip for Canadians. You might want to look into that further with the banking companies, you know, whatever banks that you're dealing with.
I can't really speak on any other country than my own because I don't know what your rules and regulations are for business. But in Canada, when you're a sole proprietor, you can accept checks in your personal name. It is advisable to deposit them into a separate personal account that you only use for your business because then it's easier when you do your taxes to look through everything.
You don't want to have the grocery store and all these little things—what a headache, right? Keep it clean and simple, just like the contract of your studio policy, right?
Now, this is really a contract, right? This is an agreement between you and your student families, so it's important that you have buy-in from them. If you give this to somebody before they start lessons and they don't like it, don't feel like you have to sit there and explain or change anything because that would be a nightmare.
You need to stand by these. If people don't believe in what you put on this, then they don't belong with you. You don't want to deal with their mess later, trust me. Okay, stay firm, stay strong. These are set for a reason, right? So that you can succeed as a teacher and spend more time focusing on your teaching instead of focusing on all that stuff in the background.
Okay, all right, so I charge a registration fee. Many teachers don't; some teachers do. The rates of a registration fee totally depend on you. What do you think you spend on paper and newsletter printouts and, I don't know, all kinds of teaching resources? What do you personally buy?
I would kind of think about that when you set your registration fees. Mine are quite small. I do a family rate, and I also do a single student rate, which is kind of helpful because if a family has three kids or more, they still end up paying the same amount that a family with just two kids would. But again, that's your choice, and these are numbers that you need to come up with yourself.
Okay, now the next column is the lesson dates. So lesson dates, I always say—now you're going to get a copy of this at the end here. I will post it in the links for you. Lessons generally follow the public school calendar. There are two weeks off at Christmas and two weeks off at spring break. There are no lessons on statutory holidays.
The first lesson is during the week of September 14th or whatever the date is that you are teaching. It's very important to clearly identify what's happening on statutory holidays. Maybe you do teach statutory holidays. I don't personally. I think my family time should be my family time, not somebody else's family time.
So you need to make your intentions clear with that, and this policy will enable your families to know exactly where you stand so you don't have any of those awkward questions that are hard to deal with.
Okay, the next column is missed lessons and early withdrawal. Oh my goodness, you guys, this is so huge. Let me just read it to you. This is bold: There are no makeups unless I cancel your lessons. If I cancel your lesson, I will give you a makeup at a time that is convenient for both of us and notify you as soon as possible.
Your lesson fee reserves you a weekly time slot, which I hold exclusively for you each week for the entire school year. That shows your commitment to this family and how important their lesson time is to you. And not only that, it just shows them that yes, somebody else can't take my spot. It's their spot secured for the entire year.
Okay, a lot of families don't understand that, so you really have to explain it. Please respect my policy. If you are away on a family vacation and miss your regularly scheduled lesson, you will forfeit your lesson. I cannot simply place another paying student to fill your time slot in your absence.
Your lesson fee pays for the—oh, I'm missing a letter—your lesson fee pays for the rental of your time slot for the entire school year. No cash refunds will be given for lessons canceled for this student.
In the event of a student wishing to discontinue their lessons, a minimum of 30 days' notice is required. Payments made and payments due will be canceled. Any funds that are owed will be due within seven days. No cash refunds will be given on makeup lessons, and makeup lessons will not be considered as cash payment for early withdrawal.
As you can see, there are a lot of details in this section. Some of these may not click with you. In my experience of over 25 years of teaching music lessons, I have found the majority of families will follow my lesson policy. There are a few, even though they sign it, that fall backwards, and I need to decide at that point how much I'm willing to deal with the stress of enforcing the policy further.
Sometimes families who you never think would be a problem with these policies, who seem to be so understanding when they first sign it and really gracious and generous, are actually the hardest ones to deal with. So you really can't trust anyone in this except for yourself. You know your rules. You need to stick with them, and you need to really be precise and clear in your contract.
Okay, yeah, music books. This is the next column. The student is responsible for the cost and purchase of any books used for lessons unless other arrangements have been made directly. I know some teachers purchase music lessons on behalf of their students, but I don't for the reason that it's a pain in the butt, right?
Like, it's a pain for your taxes because, okay, you bought this, you spent this much money on the books, but you got a teacher discount, and so really—oh, but then they paid me this much for their lessons. Oh, but they didn't pay me enough for the lessons in the book. It's just a mess.
If you want to save yourself some headache, just write down the books that they need to buy or send a link in an email and say, "Order these." It's so much easier if they will do that.
Now, sometimes parents will totally procrastinate on ordering books because they don't realize the importance. But having a policy like this where the parent is responsible for the music books should actually give them more incentive to go in and buy the books because they're paying for the lesson, they're paying for the books. They know that time without time at the piano without the books is not going to be the same. Their kids need the books.
So I have found that that has worked for me really well. And then the last section on my policy is recitals, festivals, and exams. Students are encouraged to participate in recitals, music festivals, and RCM exams. Any fees required to participate in music events are the sole responsibility of the student.
So right there, I am precise and saying, "Hey, I don't pay for all that extra stuff that doesn't come out of my fees. Those are extras that are choices for you. If you want to participate in them, you are going to pay the price for them, not me."
Because obviously, we know as teachers, if we had to pay for everybody's music festival and exams, well, we wouldn't get paid anymore because all of our fees would go towards that.
So, yeah, so there you have it. That is my private music studio policy. I really don't think that I've left anything out. If you have any questions, feel free to post them in the comments below.
We have a fabulous brand new Facebook group for teachers. It's called—trying to think—okay, Preschool Music Piano Party Freebies or something like that. I can't even remember what name I gave it, but it's something like that.
So basically, on this Facebook group, I'll be posting these videos in the group [laughter], and you're going to be able to see all kinds of free resources in this group.
Thanks for joining me today. Next week, I'm going to go through studio policies for groups. I was going to do them all in one day, but this is just too much information, so I'm going to split it up into two.
And then the following week after that, I'm going to talk about some programs that you can teach in your studio that I highly recommend. You can see my top tips for programs to offer in your studio, and they will be group classes. Well, some of them you could still adapt and teach one-on-one, which would be super fun too.
So anyhow, happy teaching to you, and I will see you next week. Bye!