By Julia Kossuth As October wraps up and we further approach the holiday season, I want to incorporate celebration and festivity into my lessons, studio atmosphere, and music that my kids learn, of course. This will not only be enjoyable for me as I teach, but also keep piano lessons relevant to everything else going on in the students' lives. Here are a few of those ideas: 1....
Read MoreBy Julia Kossuth Lately I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about why students should participate in private lessons. After all, they have so many activities pulling at them between school and other extracurricular activities, why should they set time out of their week for private music lessons? Besides the obvious reason of desiring to play the piano well and the natural passion for playing that some...
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The administrative aspect of owning a teaching studio can be tricky at times, especially when it comes to money. And though it wasn’t easy, this summer I made the decision to go forward with a payment policy change that I’ve been contemplating for a couple years now.
Up until now, I had been charging per lesson. If a family cancelled — regardless of the reason or amount of notice given — they didn’t pay. Now while most of my students attend regularly and give plenty of notice for absences, this lax “per lesson” payment policy was resulting in quite a bit of lost income for me. It took some brainstorming, but I came up with a solution that I think will benefit everyone.
It’s always nerve-racking to make a big change like this, so I spent quite a bit of time putting my new policy into writing. I wanted to be clear yet concise in my explanation, and judging from the positive feedback that I’ve received so far from my clients, it seems that I managed to do so.
I’d like to share the letter explaining my new payment policy for those of you who, like me, need to revamp your own policies. Perhaps I can save you a little bit of the time I took to write it!
New Features! Studio Helper has been busy! We have rolled out several new features this last week. They are: Add multiple teachers to a task. On the home page you can now assign more than one teacher to a task. Added an email address field to the Student Registration Report. You can now save and add another in the expenses, expenses categories and vendors. There is now an "email parent"...
Read MoreBy Wayne Estes I must admit I like technology and I love using it to support each student’s learning & growth. It can give teachers an edge in lessons and it can keep things current and savvy while keeping an eye on the perfection of each student’s craft. Here at our studios/CSM we leverage all sorts of technologies to bring new and exciting ideas to each...
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