After 5 years of private teaching, my students are growing older and have many more conflicts in scheduling. Do you expect your students to be present every week (I do) and if they can’t, do you give them vacations or how do you make it work? What are your lesson attendance policies and do you have any thoughts? I’ve just always said that it’s this much per month no matter how many lessons we have…I don’t charge any studio fees, recital fees, anything, but I don’t think parents realize how much goes on outside of their 30 or 45 minute lesson! Help! I’m a little frustrated but I know many others have been down this road!
In general, yes, I expect students to attend their lesson weekly. But I know that piano lessons are just one part of their lives. They have other responsibilities and events and I understand that piano won’t always be the priority. I adhere to a pretty strict no make-up lesson policy because I don’t have the flexibility in my schedule to give lessons outside my regular teaching hours. For this reason, my studio families know that if they can’t make it to a lesson, they will just miss that lesson.
As scheduling conflicts arise, students and families have to make difficult choices about which activities to attend. If basketball tryouts are the same afternoon as the piano lesson, they have to decide whether to make the lesson or try out for the team. If a friend schedules a sleepover for the night of the piano lesson, they have to decide whether to skip the lesson or come anyway and maybe just arrive late at the party. And so on. Most of my studio families see their lessons as a long-term pursuit, not just a short-term stint, so I don’t give them a hard time for missing lessons. That’s life. And we’ll just pick back up the following week and press on.
As an aside, if we recognize and want parents to understand that the students’ music education encompasses so much more than just their weekly lesson, we have to not act like the world will fall apart if they miss one lesson. 
In fact, I have a family who moved this fall and ended up missing two months of lessons while making the adjustment and getting settled into their new place. We are just now getting back into the swing of lessons. They may have forgotten a few things, or be a little rusty technically, but we are picking up where they’re at and moving forward. And in the long run, they’ll be just fine!
[NOTE: If you want to see the exact verbiage of my lesson attendance policies, just visit the Lesson Info page on my studio website.]
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I have a “work schedule” where students have their assigned lesson times which were set up at the beginning of the school year by them submitting a “time sheet” of their preferred lesson times. I have the policy that they pay their tuition whether they attend their scheduled lesson or not. We are all busy (I have 3 children and run for activities constantly), so I don’t feel I must rearrange my work schedule to accommodate every student’s needs. When I have to reschedule, it usually interferes with my family or I have to rush or rearrange my schedule to get it workied out. I obviously do make exceptions under certain circumstances and if I do have a very open time when I can reschedule it, but when they know they are paying for the lesson they make more of an effort to attend it as scheduled. With the season changes of sports, I do also sometimes rearrange students for a short period of time to accommodate them. However, I make sure it isn’t making my life more complicated. It is hard for me to say no to rescheduling, but I have found it necessary. In my younger years when I was in college and first married (before children) I did reschedule students constantly. But that made them think that whatever activity it was that conflicted with piano was more important and it was a real pain. It has forced parents to make piano the priority and to make choices. Sometimes they know they have to pay for the lesson and choose the other activity anyway. That is fine with me as long as they know they will not be refunded. Once I started this policy many years ago, attendance has not been a problem. I do have an interview before new students begin where we go over the policy sheet and I make that section very clear.
This is very well said, Natalie. Once again, you are a blessing and inspiration to me in my teaching!
Great topic, Natalie! Remember our conversations about this at MTNA! hehe!!
Was wondering if you charged that family to keep their spot for the 2 months…?
Natalie, your approach sounds very much like mine. I’ve found it very helpful when interviewing new students, especially if they are super busy with activities, to explain my approach in great detail so that they know ahead of time what they’re getting into.
Wonderful topic!
There definitely are activities that interfere with lessons and rightly so. Missing a few lessons here or there is not a problem at my studio.
However, I have noticed that students often elect to skip lessons for more study time. That was a big problem when I started with a 24-hour cancellation policy (full credit if you gave notice). During the Spring months I noticed that up to 1/3 of my studio was gone each week.
Since then, I created a new attendance policy. Students are allotted 2 cancellations with credit and 2 cancellations with make-up opportunities per semester. They are not required to give notice and they may cancel for any reason (homework, illness, weather, etc.). It created a much more consistent schedule for me and a while my income is still variable month-to-month, I can forecast much easier.
I do like the idea of charging the same amount every month, but I’m not quite to that point yet.
For students that do miss regularly, I usually have a conversation with the parents about whether they are committed to the lessons or not. I’m not really interested in working with students and families that aren’t committed. If the issue is only temporary, then I keep the student on the schedule and move forward. If not, we usually part ways.
Haha! Yes, I definitely remember those conversations, Becky!
The family did pay the full amount for the two months even though they didn’t end up getting any lessons. They never even questioned it or hinted at not having to pay. There’s a part of me that feels SO bad charging them when they aren’t even attending their lessons, but I know that on the business side of things I have to stick to my policies on this. Plus, if I make an exception for one family, then it’s not fair to charge other families for lessons that they miss, whether it’s one here and there, or a month or two of lessons for some reason.