As music teacher you can either teach privately in your house or in students homes, or you can teach in a music store or school - both have upsides and downsides. If you teach in your home or students homes, the upside is you can keep all of the money you charge to the student. Since you have no expenses like rent, a receptionist or newspaper advertising you do not have to pay out a percentage to overhead costs. There are also downsides of teaching in your home or your student’s homes.

It can be hard to keep your schedule constantly full with new students. Getting a full schedule can be difficult and expensive if you have to run classified ads or small newspaper ads. Even if you are a good, well-liked teacher, it can take a long time for referrals and word of mouth to fill your schedule. If you are driving to student’s houses you also have to factor in the driving time between students which limits the amount of teaching you can actually do.

The other downside of teaching on your own can be the difficulty in enforcing your attendance and payment policies. No one likes being a collection agent. It can be difficult to concentrate on your teaching while trying to keep track of who owes money and to make sure you are paid.

If you are teaching on your own, it can also be difficult to enforce your teaching policies and have your time respected. For example, if a student tells you they are going to Disney World for the next two weeks, it can be difficult to still make them pay for their lesson time. Many students will refuse to pay for those missed lessons because they will think: “I’m not getting my lesson so why should pay?”

Chances are you can’t book another student in that lesson time for just 2 weeks, so if you don’t charge the student in Disney World, you have just lost 2 weeks of pay. If that scenario happens a couple of times per month it can greatly reduce your earnings.

Now let’s look at teaching at a music school. The downside is you don’t get paid as much per student. So the pay per student to the teacher is lower because of rent, advertising, receptionists and other expenses. The upside can be having a consistently full schedule of students each day. Being paid less per student but having 10 or 11 students in a day will mean you earn more overall. Also the majority of our teachers schedule's stay full year round, unlike most private teachers that may lose more than half their students during the summer months. Working in a music school will help provide dependable income year-round.

Another upside to teaching at our music school is that you do not have any collections hassles. You only have to focus on the teaching. Also our music school provides a professional educational environment that is stimulating to the students. It is also free from distractions found in a home such as ringing phones or doorbells, tvs and noisy family members

Those are the general differences between teaching on your own and teaching in a music school or store.

HERE ARE REASONS WHY MUSIC TEACHERS CHOOSE TO TEACH AT OUR SCHOOL OVER ALL OTHER CHOICES:

A CONSTANT FLOW OF NEW STUDENTS TO KEEP SCHEDULES AS FULL AS POSSIBLE

Over the course of the year, students can move or quit. This can leave a teacher with gaps or holes in their schedule. At our schools we spend a lot of money on advertising and marketing year-round to keep our teachers' schedules as full as possible. We spend tens of thousands each year on marketing and advertising in newspapers, yellow pages, direct mail, community publications, Internet and other media to constantly attract new students. We are continually registering new students for our private music lessons even during typically slower registration months like June and July.

UNLIKE internet referral services, it is in our best interest to keep your schedule full!  With them, they want as many teachers as possible in as many places as possible.  They don't care if you only have 2 students.  We have to pay for studios and customer service, and it costs money to hire and manage them.  Therefore we want you to have a full schedule and succeed as a music teacher! It is far easier for us to support one teacher with a full schedule than it is to support 15 teachers with a couple students each.

The majority of our teachers' schedules are over 90% full

EXTRAS ARE TAKEN CARE OF - YOUR ONLY RESPONSIBILITY IS TO TEACH

We have highly trained customer service personnel to handle all of the details. From enrolling and scheduling students, corresponding with parents, to collecting tuition and arranging recitals/camps. These details are handled by our administrators not the teacher. This means the teacher is free to focus on teaching and not get bogged down by administrative details.

Driving all over town for a couple lessons, trying to remember who is months behind on tuition, trying to collect for missed lessons are all problems of the past.

ALL TEACHERS ARE EMPLOYEES and we offer perks other schools can’t

When you are hired at WCMA, you become an official employee of our company. What this means is that the Academy pays roughly half of our teacher’s taxes as well as Workers Comp Insurance and Disability. In addition, teachers receive great perks such as direct deposit, accrued paid sick time, low cost medical care through Afflac and Retirement Contributions. No more budgeting to figure out how much money you’ll owe at the end of the year for taxes as an independent contractor. We are proud to be one of the only music schools in the LA area to offer this for our teachers!

YOUR TIME IS RESPECTED AND YOU ARE PAID IF STUDENTS NO-SHOW

You will get paid for no-shows and late cancellations. This helps to keep your income steady over time. Even when they DO provide 24-hour notice, we do our best to book a make-up lesson in that spot so you are still paid. Our teachers are very comfortable knowing how much income they will make in any given month.

FLEXIBLE HOURS AND SCHEDULE

At West Coast Music Academy, there are no set amount of hours you have to work, nor a minimum amount of days. We try our best to work with your schedule and goals.

AMAZING FACILITIES

We take pride in the fact that both of our schools offer top notch equipment that is well maintained such as Kawai and Yamaha pianos and keyboards, Roland drum sets and Fender guitar amps. We also offer exclusive perks for our teachers such as teaching studios that are outfitted with large monitors and Apple TV’s as well as printers and copiers that can accessed right from your mobile device. Our Santa Clarita location even includes a stage with a PA and mics for teachers who wish to give their students performance experience in a more relaxed setting.

STUDENT RECITALS

Every year, we have student recitals and concerts that allow your students to show-off their stuff and feel the excitement of performing live in front of an audience. Our Director and office staff handle all the arrangements and communication with parents, shuffling performance times and dates around, arranging for the venues, etc so you just show up and enjoy participating in the show!

ONLINE SCHEDULING SYSTEM

With our online scheduling system, you'll know your entire schedule BEFORE you leave for the school each day. You'll also know how many students are scheduled to start with you in the future and if any have to take a break from lessons and why.

A FUN, INNOVATIVE STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT SYSTEM

We are official licensees of the Musical Ladder System, a fun student achievement system that allows students to earn very cool wristbands, certificates, and trophies when they reach certain milestones. This makes lessons more fun for students, teachers, and parents alike! We provide this optional resource free of charge for our teachers and keep everything organized for them.

COMPETITIVE PAY

Hourly wage is dependent on many factors including what you teach, as well as experience and other factors.

RESPECT AND APPRECIATION

Excellent teachers don't grow on trees. We truly value and respect each of our instructors. Feel free to ask for references from other current instructors. They love it here!