Comments on: Ripping Off Your Teachers

By: Paul R

Paul R — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 14:37:14 +0000

What a story! I’ve had a similar experience with our local music school (one of the places I teach) I eventually stopped working there due to the fact that payment would sometimes take months to arrive. They had to sell one of their grand pianos to pay the faculty! I’ve now negotiated with them-they pay me UP FRONT for the whole semester. As far as I know I’m the only one at the school with this arrangement. Why should I trust them with the money I’ve earned? Obviously this arrangement has been great (so far) but I don’t expect it to last many semesters.

By: Matt McGuire

Matt McGuire — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 18:03:33 +0000

Ahh…

I remember the good old days of the Rogers Park apartment and the Jobobo school. They were trying to recruit me while screwing you (my roomate) over! I think we even had the same phone number at that time. What a —-.

By: Ben Clapton

Ben Clapton — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 11:17:22 +0000

I’ve had a similar (though not quite the same) thing happen when I first started teaching. I went for a job at this place, had an interview, and they told me straight away that I’d get the job, all I’d need to do was to organise myself for tax purposes (getting a business number, registering for tax etc), and they’d call me about students. So I went away, got all of that organised, bought some supplies (this was really my first teaching gig, I needed to buy some beginner books as I’d passed all mine along), and waited. Never got called. Not one student.
Because I’d spent all this money buying musical supplies (for which I claimed the tax back on) and hadn’t had any income, I was stressing slightly thinking that the tax department might think I was trying to cheat the tax system. So I took the first student that I could find – who just happened to live on the complete other side of the metro area (a good hours drive from my place), and started teaching him there. Kept him for 3 years (all while fuel bills kept going up and up… thankfully I had a small car and his payment paid for my fuel for the week).
Now teaching at a school where I get paid a bit over half of what they charge the students. Thankfully they’re slowly building up the number of students I have which is making it worthwhile, and i’ve got some really gorgeous students that I wouldn’t trade for the world… well maybe a bit more dough…

By: Oxiana

Oxiana — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 13:33:24 +0000

Hey Jason! Dang man…I’m glad you finally got your loot in the end…but man…what a way to get there.

It sounds like the School District could benefit from a time and attendance software package. That way both of you would be on the same page at all times….and know exactly when and how you’d be paid.

By: Jason

Jason — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 02:09:04 +0000

Amen to that!

By: Calvin

Calvin — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 21:43:05 +0000

Your story made me consumed with frustration because I’ve been in similar scenario’s when it comes to teaching through a school/organization. I agree that the best way for a teacher to teach is to perhaps “set-up shop” by creating a website and getting their name out directly to the students. No middle-man.

By: Jason

Jason — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 18:34:30 +0000

It sounds like we ended up coming to the same realization, Bill–thanks for the comment!

By: Jason

Jason — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 18:33:52 +0000

Thanks for the comments! I actually had a blast teaching at the school you’re mentioning, Jacque–it’s the last time that I actually taught electric bass (or probably even played it!). The fact that the other Civic member teaching for them was having the same experience made me know that something was fishy with the place in general and I wasn’t just having a freak experience with this school.

By: Bill

Bill — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 15:15:15 +0000

I’m with you 100% regarding private teaching. In the 80′s, I was on the faculty of a venerable downtown conservatory which has mercifully gone the way of the dodo. My indentured servitude there included dozens of hours of mandatory, unpaid time for such things as auditions, faculty meetings, faculty ensemble rehearsals, faculty concerts and juries. We only got paid for lesson and class contact time, so my hourly pay scale might have topped your $4.67…but I don’t think so.

Now I can charge my students a very reasonable hourly fee (good for them) and keep every cent of it (good for me).

By: Jacque

Jacque — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 13:58:33 +0000

I don’t think you should feel (“should have felt”) the least bit ashamed about cussing out the executive director of the Jimbobo school. It’s not as if you just dropped a bomb on them out of the blue: you did what was asked of you (regularly faxing your timesheet), you made efforts to communicate (leaving messages when they did not answer), and upheld your commitment (continuing to teach the sleepy bassist). They failed to communicate with you.

Part of any restructuring plan (really part of ANY plan) is the communication component. You have to tell your stakeholders–and teachers are a vital stakeholder in a school–what is going on and what they can expect. The Jimbobo school failed utterly to do that.

Whew, when I started to read this post, I feared that you were going to be talking about another music school… one that we’ve both been involved with… one that provides the BEST line of your professional resume…

Cheers!
Jacque