Simpedia

Mark M., New York

Appealing as it would be to simplify administration and billing, I did not take this approach.

Different students/groups go through the program at different paces, sometimes very different. No matter what you do, charging materials at a consistent rate and regularity for all students would end up overcharging and/or undercharging many students.

Also, the odds are also that you yourself would be either over-earning or under-earning, since the odds are fairly slim that you’ll pick just the right amount per month to have everything come out matching your actual expenses over time.

I therefore felt that the administrative benefits did not outweigh the inherent, unavoidable lack of fairness to most parties.

Jeremy

I find that Mark’s reasoning is exactly why I use an inclusive method. I feel that the major difference in pacing in students is based upon their practicing. Thus the parents who are underpaying are getting a discount for practicing well and those overpaying are paying more for their slow progress. I only had one slow mom complain and I told her that it was the new policy and was non-negotiable and she didn’t ask again. I also promised her that if her daughter kept up on her playlist, she would definitely get her money’s worth out of the lessons.

I overcharge a little on the tuition than before and then bundle the materials at $15 per family. I am taking a slight loss on materials, but it is worth it to me not to have to spend so much time on billing and I can just use autobill pay and parents never have to think about it. I am not only thinking about my administrative time, but also parents. The other advantage is that I never have a loss on materials from parents who get the book and “forgot their checkbook”. Also by listing it low and raising tuition, parents don’t worry as much about the fairness as for 70% of them, it was less than they were paying in materials before.

Adding close to 20 new students this week. They must not be too bothered by the policy!

Robin Keehn, Washington

I love reading the answers here and the opinions of various teachers.

When it comes right down to it, whatever you are 100% committed to will work in your studio. If you are 100% sure that you require an all-inclusive payment or 100% sure that the other model works for you, your students will get that and do it the way you require with no objections.

The minute you aren’t sure, you will be challenged. This applies to the playlist, tuition, the use of the DVD, lessons in the summer, etc. Even feeling a little apologetic or a little “bad” about a requirement changes its very nature and makes it negotiable. We humans are pretty intuitive when it comes to reading how someone feels and if they can be pushed (manipulated, negotiated with).

Thanks for sharing two very different perspectives.

Carrie L., Michigan

We have a system of home materials at our studio that works for us.

We have a card that the teacher fills out about 2 weeks before the student needs the materials. It has name of student, teacher and book needed. The student or parent bring it to the front desk the office staff assistant puts it in the online system we have Studio Director.. the student authorizes payment and then we order it when there are at least 4 people. We charge $2.50 for shipping per student otherwise we lose money on shipping.

When the home materials are paid for they go into the slot for HM and are marked PAID.
Then I order them and put the card in the ordered section.

It works when all the teachers (including me) follow the system.

Rebecca P., Australia

As I teach SM in addition to singing lessons, Kindermusik and theatre classes along with raising 3 young children, my overall mantra is ‘EASY!’ This has prompted me to implement an all-inclusive monthly fee. Having just started teaching this year the system is not yet perfect but close to being so for me.

I worked out what I thought an average student would get through in yr one (F 1, 2 & 3, accomp 1, windows, RR, certificates for kids only etc…) and just added that to my yearly fee divided by the 10.5 months that I teach. No one has complained or even asked and it’s SO easy to explain at FIS.

I do have 2 lessons that are exceptions at the moment. A shared lesson of 2 previously experienced adults who are moving faster than the norm whom I give a lot of arrangements to, and an older lady who is paying for a 20 min private lesson and moving very slowly but I often end up giving her a 30 min lesson so figure it all works out.

I simply love the simplicity (pardon the pun!)

Mark M., New York

I emphatically agree with Robin that not every policy works for every teacher, and that any policy that anyone feels confident standing behind is likely the right policy for that teacher to adopt. Absolutely.

And in a studio where all students progressed closely enough to the same speed, I agree that there would be very compelling benefits to the inclusive plan. Whether practice or other factors were involved, all that would really matter is that the students were all close enough in speed. An inclusive plan would then be equitable while also reducing administrative headaches.

As for practice habits, then, I once had a conversation with Neil in which he told me to expect that some students will on average learn X amount per week, others will learn that amount every two weeks, and others every three weeks. That this would be typical variation within a student body. My guess is that Neil’s students on the whole probably were pretty efficient with practice, because he probably wouldn’t have stood for anything less. If Neil can have that much variation in student progress — a range of three times difference in speed (and consequently three times difference in materials costs under an inclusive plan) — it’s hard for me to imagine that practice habits could be the majority cause of variation among students.

Now, some teachers prefer to teach certain age ranges, and so perhaps some studios may actually end up with a very uniform student population in terms of ability and progress, in which case the typical student body variation profile may not apply.

But even in a studio where somehow everyone in the student body proceeded at roughly the same pace, for whatever reason but including everyone having excellent practice habits, I suspect that any amount of variation other than relatively-close-to-zero could add up to a noticeable enough inequity in materials costs over time that, if anyone bothered to do the math, some people would complain about an inclusive plan.

Now, not everyone will do the math, much less people just coming into a studio where it may not even occur to them that there could be an alternative compared to the stated policies and business models. But I personally wouldn’t want to be in a position where a lack of complaints was only due to my clientele not being insightful enough to discover something about my policies that I would have preferred them to not discover.

Which doesn’t mean that every teacher would have a problem with people discovering the nature of an inclusive plan. We probably all have policies that some of our students/families dislike and may complain about. So if an inclusive plan is what you want, and if you understand its implications, and if you have a consistent enough student body that whatever inequity there may be is small enough that you feel you personally can live with it, and if you have no problem saying so even to someone who does the math and questions your policy, and you’re willing to lose that student as a result, then you’re being completely up front, not hiding anything, and you’re just standing behind a policy you like, and that’s truly that.

But if equity is important to a teacher to build into policies, I believe that the likelihood of an inclusive plan proving equitable enough for most studios’ clientele under most circumstances is low enough that I personally would not be able to stand behind the inequity, despite the extra administrative headaches I’d in turn be bringing upon myself with a pay-as-you-go plan.

Rebecca P., Australia

I just wanted to add something I neglected to include with my previous post on this matter. In my experimental year with all-inclusive fees, I will be reviewing my students’ actual SHM usage against my estimates for the year and if here are discrepancies I will be offering an adjustment towards the end if the year eg: half off your Nov tuition etc.. Along with an explanation of why. At the moment I might just wear the one group who looks like they will have used more SHM than budgeted.

My PAS students are currently on the same, all-inclusive rate as I include things like scrapbooks, carry bag, stamps etc.. In addition to their SHM. Once I have the details ironed out this year I’ll be including a section in my policies about the SHM portion of the fees.

Kerry V., Australia

An interesting topic.

What about students who start but do not continue? Eg. if someone is in level one and just before 20 weeks leaves. They have only paid, in reality, only a fraction of the price of the kit. How would you over come that short fall?

Cheri S., Utah

Here’s another idea. I decided to charge a flat rate whenever a student advances to a new Foundation Level. The fee includes all the materials that are usually introduced during that level. That way it’s a predictable amount that you know will be coming as you near the end of a level.

I explain that students will move through the materials at different paces, but that the cost for the materials is the same as it would be if we paid $45 here and $25 there and $18 another time. I got tired of having to calculate and organize materials orders almost every month. Now they pay a flat rate with each level, get a bunch of stuff all at once, and then we use it when we use it.

This plan loosely matches each students’ progress, because the fee only happens when they advance a level. I haven’t been doing this for too long, but so far, student variation hasn’t ended up too extreme. For example, most students start Reading Rhythm around the middle of Level 3, while others start near the end, but nearly everyone falls roughly somewhere during that Level.

Gordon Harvey, Australia

Unless I’ve missed it, another issue to take into consideration is that as the student progresses through the curriculum, the amount and cost of SHMs will tend to decrease. For example, as you move through the Foundation levels, there are progressively fewer Special programs until there are (at this stage) none from module 7, and the materials get cheaper again as you move into the Development program. It’s possible to be equitable, but to do so you would have to average out costs not only across all skill levels but across typical student longevity. Not easy to do! The main thing to remember would be that if fairness is a major consideration, you will probably be charging in a way that has you losing money on students at earlier levels and hoping you keep them long enough to make up the shortfall.

Regardless, down the track you can expect that students may question the fact that they are paying the same materials allowance and receiving less.