Questions for those that have taught in a music/school/store setting

[Steve Clark]

I'm gathering information on how music schools/music stores, rather than formal training at college or university, structure lessons/scheduling. There is a possibility of a new school opening in my town that I may be involved in organizing so I'm trying to understand the teaching of music outside of a formal college or university.

For example some music stores/schools rent the room to the teacher. Others sell packages of lessons that are prepaid in sometimes overly complicated ways. If you've worked in a music store/school teaching privately how was this arranged regarding fees/room rental/ scheduling of lessons?

If you teach privately what would draw you back to teaching in a music store/school setting? Better pay? Convenience of not having to find students? Would if work if there was a central organization that fielded phone calls for lessons as well as marketing of lessons and you still taught at home?

I find that a number of private teachers in this town stop teaching in the summer in parallel with high school schedule. Is this a common practice? It would be hard for a school to function of 2 months of the year a large percentage of student's disappear for the summer.

Finally what sort of rates are charged for lessons? Especially if it's a room rental situation in the music school. School charges $XX for a lesson and pays the teacher $XX.

Thanks for reading.

[Stumbo]

Here are a few links you may want to check out:
~Teaching Bass
1 Teaching ideas
2
Becoming a teacher
Carol Kay's bass learning/playing advice
How much to charge?

[One Bad Monkey]

I taught at a music store for a couple of reasons. Firstly, if you teach there, it is in the store's best interest to push your services. You can market yourself as well, but if the store helps you get more students, they assume you'll help push their stock.

The way that our store worked was that the store charged the student a monthly fee of $52 (this was about ten years ago) for four half-hour lessons. The teachers saw $36 of it, before taxes (another bonus to being at a music store, if they work it that way).

It doesn't seem like a lot, but given that I didn't have to do anything to get students, secure a room, etc.. it was a pretty decent deal.

[Kobaia]

It is very convenient that a store provides you with students. Its sometimes hard to find a base of students who just dont know what they're doing yet and dont have the connections to find you.

The only reason i find the package plan to work out is if someone cancels on your last minute, you can have a policy that states you'd still get paid for the missed lesson. that can be a life saver for your teachers.

i've known some shops to charge per student, or per day. $5 a student or $30 for the day. Most places charge $25 an half hour. I personally charge $25 for each half hour for private lessons. It depends on your staff's qualifications if you require everyone to have experience or an associates degree or bachelors degree or higher to work there. If you have people there with a degree in music education, i would expect them to charge more than someone who has been playing guitar for 10 years with nothing to show for it.

Ultimately as a teacher i'd rather do it in home, as the renting fee for those rooms would be no longer a factor.

sometimes, as the case with the bass exchange years ago, Gary Willis would do lessons out of that shop. I would find it hard to believe that they charged him for using the room if you have a big fish like that i'd say let him stay there for free especially if he is bringing in students on his own power.