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I want to update my studio policy this year.
I would love to see or hear what your sounds like so that I can have more ideas on how you handle certain situations.
I am month to month tuition, but have gotten burned this past semester by those wanting make ups and only wanting to spay for what lessons they attended! Ugh how frustrating. So it is time for a re-vamp if my studio policy for 2013!

Help and thanks for your suggestions.

Ours has a flat monthly fee. Sometimes you get 5 lessons and sometimes 3 a month - all for the same price. This way when the studio closes for 2 weeks over winter break they (teachers, owners) are guaranteed to get the same income.

I'm probably in the minority with this, but I charge my students on a weekly basis. It just works out best for me so I don't have to worry about makeup lessons. I allow students to cancel until 10:00am the morning of the lesson. After that I still collect payment. I have in my policy that cancelled lessons MAY be rescheduled in the same week, but I can't always guarantee a spot.

My teacher charges monthly for 4 lessons. I believe he's quite generous with make-ups and reschedules, and uses the occasional 5th week for make-ups or for a week off.

I pay on the first lesson of month for as many lessons as will be had that month, which is straight forward. Makeups are arranged at time of cancellation working around teacher's schedule, but I hate to miss so this is rare.

I charge annual tuition. There are 36 lessons included and I issue a calendar of dates the studio is closed and I include one sick day for myself that doesn't have to be made up if we run out of weeks. Missed lessons simply move into summer. The calendar begins for each student upon enrollment. If they don't use all 36, I don't refund.

Tuition is payable in either two semester payments or 12 equal monthly installments.

This is what we've gone back to doing when we opened up our school. It takes a little bit of time for parents to understand they are paying installments on a yearly tuition, but doing it this way really helps with regulating one's own income.

As far as make-ups, we have not limited those, but they do happen way too often and I think next year we will change that. We do have weeks designated for making up lessons, however (like M-W the week of Thanksgiving, or the week of New Year's) where normally scheduled lessons do not occur that are used for when schedules don't allow for easy make-ups. Any last-minute cancellations are not made up (at the teacher's discretion).

I charge annual tuition that's divided into 4 quarterly payments. Some suggestions:

Move from charging tuition monthly to charging quarterly. It's SO much easier on your bookkeeping and you're not thinking of 'how many lessons each month'.

Charge a hefty late fee for parents who don't pay on time.

Figure in the weeks you are NOT teaching (Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving). I plan for 5 weeks off during the year and parents know ahead of time the 4 scheduled holiday weeks off; the 5th week is one I can take whenever I need. Tuition is the same because I already have figured out how many TOTAL lessons students will get that year.

Don't give any makeup lessons. If you don't feel comfortable doing this then be VERY specific about what circumstances you give makeups (only for illness, NOT for out of town trips, parties/after school events, sports, etc...). And stick to it.

You might say something about parents/siblings sitting in on lessons. Do you teach out of your home? Set some perimeters. I don't mind parents sitting in but siblings can be disruptive to the lesson. Have a nice bench on your front porch for parents/kids to wait on.

Another option on makeups is the policy my teacher has: there are a set number of "personal days" per year (in this case 2) that get makeups. That way the teacher doesn't have to be policing whether it's travel, illness etc. In any case students pay for the lessons as normal, and makeups are scheduled at the teacher's convenience, often at the end of the season.

The missed lessons issue is always messy among studio music teachers. There are many different ways to deal with it, but I think they come down to this: you have to set a policy that works for you, and stick to it. Put it in writing, and then rehearse your policy out loud in front of a mirror and with trusted friends or family, so you believe what you state. Hand out the policy statement to your students and/or their parents, at least once a year.

Here's a shorthand spectrum as I view it.....

1. You can practice tough love: no make-ups, and tuition is charged by the year.

2. You can practice modified tough-love: sometimes yes to make-ups, but tuition is charged by the year.

3. You can practice the I'm-a-pal-to-everybody teaching style: yes to any make-ups, even at the last minute for flimsy reasons, and yes to missed lessons without payment.

If you are well off or have a well-off spouse, if you are only teaching for fun, and if you want everybody to like you but perhaps not respect you, go with version #3.

We are permitted makeups but they have to be scheduled quickly. They can't add up to the end of the year or next month. I think we have a week or two to get it made up or lose it. The time is usually a bad time (7 or 7:30 on a weeknight) so I assume most families give it up.

For the record: dumdiddle lives in California.

Cindy, there have been many, many threads on this subject with gnashing of teeth from many sides. I contend, like many of my professional colleagues, that there is no such thing as a make-up lesson, rather, you're giving the student a free lesson. Consider, did you show up at your work place on time and ready to teach? If you did, you're out an hour's worth of pay for your efforts.

Of course, there's the issue of rescheduling, which most of us consider to happen before the lesson. Rescheduling a missed lesson is double speak for make-up. Some of us have a 48 hr advanced notice, others have a 24 hr. When working with young students, who experience quick onset (and recovery) from colds, the morning of makes sense to many.

My own personal policy is that reschedules must be notified 24 hrs in advance, except for illness, and the missed lesson must be rescheduled within a 5 day window. That is, if you know you cannot be here Wednesday for your lesson, but there's an opening on Tuesday, you're welcome to it. Ditto Thursday, but not weeks later.

Academic school activities are justifiable reasons for rescheduling; sports are not. You decide what your priority is.

There are many, many goods and services which you purchase in life on an use it or lose it basis. There is no reason for you to be the sacrificial lamb for someone else's poor planning. Simply don't do it.

And by the way, there are plenty of piano teachers who simply do not give extra lessons under any circumstance. You come at your appointed time, or don't come. Your choice.

I found that when I switched from having students pay per lesson to paying per month, I got a LOT less outright cancellations. Yes, sometimes students still can't come, but it's rare. Much more often, they let me know ahead of time and reschedule. And a lot of the dumb reasons for cancelling have gone away. They know that they're paying for lessons, so they come if at all possible.

My bookkeeping is WAY easier now too. I don't have to count how many lessons each student had to send them a bill; I just have to keep track of any extra expenses, like materials or competition fees.

John, this is worth fleshing out for those who weren't around a few years ago when you first explained it. I found it quite fair and sane, and it is easily misunderstood, so I hope you don't mind.

The idea is that there are two kinds of occasion. 1) A student knows in advance about an absence, and asks for the usual lesson time to be rescheduled. The teacher is given forewarning so that he can plan, and it may even be possible to fill that time slot with someone else. This is "reschedule" and it is in fact a makeup lesson for the missed lesson. 2) A student announces last minute that he won't show up, or simply doesn't show up. If this is for a frivolous reason, or the student could have said something in advance but didn't, then it isn't fair to expect that lesson to be replaced. That's why two different names have been given for 1 and 2.

For non-teachers: there is sometimes confusion about the idea that the monthly or semester fee is for lessons, so if you pay for 4 lessons, you should get 4 lessons - thus a makeup is due if you are absent. But in fact you are paying for his time, and the time slot that is reserved for you, say Thursday from 5:00 - 6:00. If you're not there, and you want a makeup lesson, which maybe you get next Tuesday, then one of those time slots is unpaid time where the teacher has to sit there in the middle of the day. If he can fill your slot, then he doesn't have to sit idle for an hour, and he can also get paid for that time period. That's the essence of it. Anyone self-employed who has been in similar situations might relate.

May I suggest that it should be equal the other way around. If a teacher wants his time to be respected, then the student's time slot should also be. Either that, or the freedom extends both directions (example: teacher who does a lot of performing and has an unpredictable schedule).

Pay monthly?

Pay quarterly?

Every teacher I've had takes payment at the start of end of the lesson, I do it this way since there is no discount for payment in advance. I turn up at a specified time each week and give 48 hours notice if I can't make it.

Justpin, your story is a reminder that many studio piano teachers run their practices differently than some of the suggestions you are reading about here.

And perhaps payment as tuition in advance is less common in Europe than it is in Canada and the US.

But from a teacher's standpoint, the issue is this:
if you as student cancel a lesson some week, even with the courtesy of 2 days of advance notice, your teacher still loses income for your lesson, and also has a (possibly annoying) hole in her teaching day's schedule.

If the two of you decide to reschedule this lesson, then the teacher has not lost income, but her teaching schedule is doubly thrown off - i.e., once for the day you missed, and once for the day you rearrange.

Some teachers don't missed the rescheduling issues, but lost income is another matter.

It has been my experience that the teachers who take lesson payment one lesson at a time are usually less serious or appear to be less serious about their teaching as a business. The only exception to this is for some teachers who have a very good reputation that attract students from all over the world, and thus charge on a per-lesson basis for those students.

And that is your experience based on where you are. As Peter says, "And perhaps payment as tuition in advance is less common in Europe than it is in Canada and the US." Payment by the lesson appears to me to be more common where I live than it is in Canada and the US, and I don't think it reflects on the seriousness of the teacher.

(However, the OP is from the US.)