After presenting about tuition structures that allow us teachers to be paid the same amount every month regardless of the number of lessons, I’m often asked how I handle Monday holidays since that seems to mean that Monday students will get fewer lessons. There are at least 3 federal holidays for which schools usually get out that fall on Mondays every year (Memorial Day, Labor Day, and Martin Luther King Jr.’s Day). I have a specific way that I deal with this that works for me, but I know that’s only one of many ways. So I recently asked this question on the ComposeCreate Facebook page. I was surprised at the many different ways to deal with this and thought you might be interested. Here are just some of them:
- I only teach Tuesday through Friday!
- Monday students get their missing lesson the week before Christmas or the week of Thanksgiving.
- Take Labor Day week off. Teach the Monday of Thanksgiving and take the rest of the week off…this takes the place of Memorial Day. Go ahead and teach on Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
- Schedule group classes the week of the Monday holidays. So there are no private lessons that week and all students come to the group lessons that are scheduled later in the week.
There are lots more ideas and the great thing is that you don’t have to be a Facebook user to see the many responses of the generous teachers who shared their own solutions and ideas. Simply click the link and you’ll see them all! Thank you to all the teachers who took the time to say how they solve this problem in their studio. But if you are a FB user, then be sure to like the page and you’ll see all the great discussions we have there.
So here it is the Facebook post with all the answers from others:
In case you can’t see what’s above, go to:Â How Do You Handle the Monday Holidays in terms of tuition payments since there are more Monday holidays than others?
Other posts that might interest you:
- Pro-rating for students entering mid-year
- Snow days, jury duty, illness…oh my!
- NCKP followup: stress-free practices links
image by markhillary
How do you not teach on Saturdays?
Hi Rita,
Not teaching on Saturdays is just a choice I made a long time ago for a variety of reasons. I knew that it might mean less income, but because I made sure that on the days I taught, I charged a tuition that was fair to both my students AND to me, so that certainly helped. I’ve just only taken students who can come on weekdays. It’s different for everyone and it might not work for you, but it’s worked out for me. There’s definitely pros and cons!
Hello! I’ve just recently found your blog and I think it’s really amazing. I already found really interesting ideas in here, and you even convinced me of changing to a no makeup lesson policy, which is something I’ve been meaning to do but couldn’t quite discover how to implement.
I have a question though… when you speak about the yearly tuition (another novelty for me, because so far I’ve been charging monthly according to the amount of lessons in a month, and it was really annoying…) the amount of lessons you take into consideration is an average of 4 lessons a month, or how do you do it? I mean. I teach tuesday to friday, and some months there are five tuesdays in a month, vs. only four thursdays or so. Should I just think 9 months and 4 lessons a month (and the fifth goes unnoticed)??
Well, I hope I was clear enough.
Thanks in advance!
Hi Denise,
That’s a great question and it might seem like both a simple and a complex answer. But basically, you take the number of weeks you will schedule yourself to teach in the entire year (or school year), multiply that by your per lesson price and then divide by the number of times you want to be paid (like monthly). The article that talks about that is here: https://composecreate.com/no-more-charging-lessons-by-the-week/ So, in some months, you might only have 2 lessons (like December), but others might have 5. It all ends up even in the end if you schedule yourself to teach the number of promised weeks.
If that doesn’t help, then I’d strongly recommend taking the business course that hundreds of teachers have taken and said that it’s changed their stress level and definitely their income level. You can learn about it or purchase it here: https://composecreate.com/store/best-stress-free-business-practices-for-your-studio/
How about if a family takes a weekly vacation?
How about if a family takes a monthly vacation?
Hi Mary Anne,
Then, they just take their vacation! Remember that it is their choice to do that and you cannot possibly have a normal life if you are always rearranging your schedule based on other’s vacation schedules! 🙂 Just smile and say, Have a wonderful vacation! I’ll be here teaching if something changes in your plans! If they question it, you can remind them that their tuition pays for more than just the weekly appointment with you. Feel free to give them the “Where Does My Tuition Go?” brochure that you can find here: https://composecreate.com/brochure/
Hi, Wendy –
Why “go ahead and teach on Martin Luther King, Jr. day?”
Thanks,
– Joyce
What’s great about piano teaching is that you can choose which days you take off! If you have a studio whose families are mostly going to be home and not out of town on Monday holidays, then you could go ahead and teach those days. But it’s up to you, your schedule, and your families!