I'm trying to get a sense of what rates to expect in different teaching (private lessons) situations. I know there are several different business models for private studios. You can have your own in-home studio, travel to student's homes, churches have programs where they provide a space for teachers to maintain a studio, you can teach in a local music shop, etc. I've been teaching piano lessons in a private music shop for almost a year now. The rate that I get for teacher there is, as I knew from the beginning really, on the low side. But I'm starting to realize just how low.
In this particular model the owner maintains all of the business side of things - he provides the studio rooms for all the teachers and the necessary equipment (pianos, drums etc.), he manages new student applicants, withdrawals, tuition, scheduling etc. The teacher has only to provide their schedule availability and just show up and teach. The other important thing that he does that I want to mention is advertising. He does several forms of advertising from news letters to newspaper ads to maintaining a website, even local TV ads bringing in a steady stream of students which is nice. The owner collects the tuition from the students on a monthly basis and pays the teachers at an hourly rate. The tuition is pretty much the same as what is charged in the rest of the region. The teachers I should also mention are all university trained and are independent contractors. We are not employees.
Does anybody know of or have experience with teaching models similar to this and if so, what portion of the tuition should a teacher expect? I want to get a better sense of how much these elements of advertising and maintaining the business end of things should be worth. The sense that I've been getting from some local teachers I know is that our setup is quite unbalanced and not a very desirable situation.
Excluding books and materials and registration fees that students are charged upon signing up, the owner of the shop takes 60% of the monthly tuition and the teachers take 40%. I recognize that we are provided studio space and instruments/equipment to use and advertising which is a good bit, but lately I feel like I am the one with the music degree and the training to teach professionally, I'm not just some second rate teacher, and that I should get quite a bit more than I do. I just don't know enough about how this teaching business world works to know what to ask for or rather, what to require of people.
I know that numbers are different in different parts of the country, that's why I used percentages rather than set amounts. Tell me what you guys think.
