As music teacher you can either teach privately in your house or in students homes, or you can teach in a music store or school – both have upsides and downsides. If you teach in your home or students homes, the upside is you can keep all of the money you charge to the student. Since you have no expenses like rent, a receptionist or yellow pages advertising you do not have to pay out a percentage to overhead costs. There are also downsides of teaching in your home or your student’s homes. It can be hard to keep your schedule constantly full with new students. Getting a full schedule can be difficult and expensive if you have to run classified ads or small newspaper ads. Even if you are a good, well-liked teacher, it can take a long time for referrals and word of mouth to fill your schedule. If you are driving to student’s houses you also have to factor in the driving time between students which limits the amount of teaching you can actually do.

The other downside of teaching on your own can be the difficulty in enforcing your attendance and payment policies. No one likes being a collection agent. It can be difficult to concentrate on your teaching while trying to keep track of who owes money and to make sure you are paid.

If you are teaching on your own, it can also be difficult to enforce your teaching policies and have your time respected. For example, if a student tells you they are going to Disney World for the next two weeks, it can be difficult to still make them pay for their lesson time. Many students will refuse to pay for those missed lessons because they will think: “I’m not getting my lesson so why should pay?”

Chances are you can’t book another student in that lesson time for just 2 weeks, so if you don’t charge the student in Disney World, you have just lost 2 weeks of pay. If that scenario happens a couple of times per month it can greatly reduce your earnings.

Now let’s look at teaching at a music school. The downside is you don’t get paid as much per student. Teaching rates that in-home teachers and music schools charge are usually pretty similar. So the pay per student to the teacher is lower because of rent, yellow pages, receptionists and other expenses. The upside can be having a consistently full schedule of students each day. Being paid a little less per student but having 10 or 11 students in a day will mean you earn more overall.

Another upside to teaching at our music school is that you do not have any collections hassles. You only have to focus on the teaching. Also our music school provides a professional educational environment that is stimulating to the students. It is also free from distractions found in a home such as ringing phones or doorbells, tvs and noisy family members

Those are the general differences between teaching on your own and teaching in a music school or store.

A constant flow of new students to keep schedules as full as possible
Over the course of the year, students can move or quit. This can leave a teacher with gaps or holes in their schedule. Most student register and start lessons in September. Most music schools only advertise in late August and September for new students. At our school we spend a lot of money on advertising and marketing year round to keep our teacher’s schedules as full as possible. Each year we spend on advertising in newspapers, yellow pages, direct mail, community publications and other media to constantly attract new students. We are continually registering new students for our private music lessons even during typically slower registration months like May or June.

Extras are taken care of – your only responsibility is to teach
At all of our locations we have full-time front desk administrators to handle all of the “details” of teaching. From scheduling to collecting fees or arranging an accompanist for recitals, these details are handled by our administrators not the teacher. This means the teacher is free to focus on teaching and not get bogged down by administration.

Your time is respected and you are paid whether or not students show up
Teachers are paid for lessons whether students attend or not. If a student misses classes for school trips or holidays, the teacher is still paid. The only time a student is given an extra make-up lesson is if the student is sick and they can only have 2 make-up lessons per year for sickness. If a student does not pay for their lessons or has an uncollectible debt, the teacher is still paid. Our priority for our teachers is to make sure that your time is not abused and your teaching day can be as productive as possible.

If you are interested in applying for a teaching position after reading this sheet or viewing our website please email your resume using the link below. No Phone Calls Please. Only suitable applicants will be contacted for an interview.

Small class sizes
We limit class sizes to make classes easier to control and monitor for teachers and to give more personalized attention to students. Our classes for ages 3-5 are limited to a maximum of 13 students per class. Our classes for ages 6 and up are limited to a maximum of 13 students per class.

Full-time administrative support
In many studios there is no receptionist on duty. This means that the teachers are faced with administration details when they should be concentrating on teaching. We have full-time front desk administrative staff during class times to handle routine questions and details that arise.

Floating Marley dance floors in all studios
We use professional floating Marley dance floors in all of our studios. Our dance floors rest on a system of 700 high-density foam blocks. This dance floor helps prevent injuries and fatigue. A good quality floor is a consideration if you are going to be teaching for a few hours each day. A supportive quality floor allows you to protect your most important assets – your body and your ability to teach.

Extras are taken care of
We try to take care of all of the extra details throughout the year. Teachers are not required to collect any fees. We also take care of all the organization of yearly recitals. We try to have everything well organized so the teachers are free to concentrate on teaching and nothing else.