When I started teaching, some of the first advice I got from other teachers was to implement a “studio policy.” I’d never heard of a studio policy, and at first it seemed a little unnecessary: Like everyone else, I started with only a few students. It seemed ridiculous to implement and enforce a rigid policy when in fact I had plenty of open slots to offer if a student wanted to reschedule. Additionally, I like to at least think of myself as helpful and flexible. So I rescheduled lessons right and left. As long as I only had a few students, there was no problem.
But then the studio grew. It grew so much, in fact, that every after-school slot was booked and I was turning students away. And as the studio grew, I was depending more and more on that income. At the same time, I felt that I had to reserve the time I needed for my own practicing and writing: I didn’t want to be available to teach just any old time of the day. At that point, excessive cancellations started becoming a problem because I didn’t have times when I could make-up the missed lessons without encroaching on my own creative work. The straw that broke the camel’s back occurred one week when 19 (yes, nineteen) students requested scheduling changes. Clearly, that was impossible to accommodate, and now I had the problem of explaining to parents why all of a sudden they weren’t getting make-ups any time they wanted.
Anyone who teaches or tutors independently needs a studio policy to address issues such as payments, refunds, and missed lessons. While you may be able to be flexible when you first start and have an empty schedule, the earlier you get on board with this the better: It’s easier to have a policy and be flexible with it than to try to enforce a new, stricter policy after people have gotten used to your accommodating ways!
At the minimum, policies should cover the following issues: Your payment schedule, materials fees, late fees (if any), attendance expectations, and cancellations, refunds, and make-ups.
Some teachers’ policies run for many pages and include additional issues such as practice expectations, parental involvment and supervision, requirements for summer study, recital attendance, and notice required to stop lessons.
Really, you can put anything in there that you want: Personally, I like to keep my policy as short and simple as possible, covering only the major points of contention and headache. Otherwise it starts looking like a fine-print legal contract, and that’s not the image I want to project. (And my experience is that people tune out if you give them too much information all at once.) Other teachers, though, like having everything all spelled out in one place.
The following website (http://www.toddfamily.com/policies/Policies/Policies.htm) contains links to dozens of studio policies. While this is a piano teacher’s page, the policies can be adapted by anyone who teaches or tutors ANYTHING (not just music) in a private setting. If you read a few of them, you’ll soon see what’s typical and what’s not. You’ll see some of the issues other teachers have found it necessary to address (some of which you may never have thought of; others that may not apply to you). And you’ll be able to cut and paste and mix and match so that you have a policy that works for you.
