Feeling $hort in the summer? A working summer strategy to have your cake and eat it, too!(Forum Focus: Independent Music Teachers)

A teachers, we love our students and they love us-but we must always remember that our relationship is primarily professional. In that regard, it is our responsibility to ourselves to keep our businesses solvent and protect ourselves from financial hardship. One of the challenges in our profession is keeping our schedules active in the summer when our students wish to take breaks from their studies. We do, toot The problem is, our overhead does not take a vacation! And we all know what September is like when students return after several months away from their studies. With a good strategy and advance planning, this challenge does not need to be a problem at all. They can have their break, enhance their skill level, and we can meet our financial needs without any conflicts of interest!

In the simplest terms, what we do as independent teachers is sell our time providing education. While the majority of our work is done in weekly meetings with our students, this is not pre-ordained. Our working hours can be managed any way we would like to offer them. The choice is ours!!

If we examine the current conventions of summer life for our students, we find that group activities are the norm-and, in fact, the preferred format. Camps (of all kinds), extended sessions of all kinds of activities are offered--horseback-riding, golf, band practice, girl scout activities, boy scout outings--the list goes on and on!

Why not music? We can offer a variety of subjects-even projects-to keep heir enrollment active and our studio needs met.

Strategies

1. Annual billing: 43 lessons annually for Sxxx. Plan your calendar and schedule accordingly throughout the year.

2. Required minimum summer enrollment: require two to four hours of summer enrollment for your students to retain their enrollment in your studio--lessons to be scheduled anywhere between June-August (even 2 two-hour sessions-one at the beginning and one at the end of summer).