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Re: Going Rate for Student Lessons

Author: allencole
Date: 2008-07-26 21:24

Another issue to explore-perhaps in a separate thread--would be would sort of business terms we find acceptable at teachers. I run a fairly tight ship in those terms, and it has helped immensely in fighting upward pressure on my prices.

Meri is right on about seriousness vs. price. I find it's true more often than not. In fact, I resisted a price increase from $17 for over 5 years, and got no squawks when I took it up to $20. (some stores had reached $22 by that point)

Another thing that I've found is that in-school lessons went far less well in terms of accomplishment compared to music-store lessons. A couple of reasons:
1 - Band directors and parents kept prices artificially low, were susidizing the lessons outright, or were paying for them in full.
2 - Students had too many distractions around, and found it all to easy to make up an excuse to miss their lesson if they weren't prepared.
3 - I never met the parents. The band director assigned a lesson slot, and the parents took no interest in who was being locked in a small room alone with their child each week. (?!)

Putting the lessons in a music store was worth the loss in room rent for these factors:
1 - Lessons had to be arranged, and got the parents involved.
2 - The businss side of things was no longer controlled by the school or parents, and therefore not subject to their whims.
3 - Lazy band students met guitar players who had to practice pretty had just to learn a song. It really drove home a world-view that they would not believe while confined to their school band environment.

Students also had to at least pack up their instrument and walk from the school next door to the music store--or had to be driven back to the store at night after their initial return home. Travel is another factor that weeds out committment.

I think that both business terms and curriculum are subjects a teach must do a lot of soul-searching on, and continue to review as the years go by. I think that this would be an interesting subject to compare notes on. You can decide if it should be in this thread or a new one.

Allen Cole

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Going Rate for Student Lessons new

Claire Annette

2008-07-24 16:23