Rescheduling and Make-Up Lessons

Allowances

Melissa provides a total of 3 make-up lessons per year for sick and vacation time only. To avoid running out of make-ups, students should exchange lesson times with other students in place of missed lessons. Please review the lesson exchange policies and instructions listed below.

Availability

Make-up lessons are not always guaranteed. With a full studio, Melissa has limited slots available. Make-up lessons are also unavailable in the evenings (Melissa already has a full schedule during this time), and she cannot cancel another student’s lesson to fit in a make-up lesson. Rescheduled lessons will not be offered during Thanksgiving and Christmas breaks. Melissa also does not give make-up lessons or credits in the summer for lessons missed during the school year, or vice versa.

Please commit now, to NOT schedule other activities in place of piano lessons, because Melissa may not be able to accommodate schedule changes. Additionally, it may not be possible to change your lesson time later in the year. By this time, Melissa’s schedule will have been set with other students and is more difficult to rearrange.

Please commit now, to NOT schedule other activities in place of piano lessons.

At the end of December and June, Melissa will set aside 1 day for make-up lessons. These are set aside for sick/vacation make-ups only, if they have not been rescheduled yet. Melissa will communicate the day and time as it approaches. For all other lessons needing to be rescheduled (sports, church, birthday/school parties) please be prepared to arrange a lesson swap for your student.

Summer Attendance

Left empty during the summer, your spot may be filled by a new student. Melissa gives priority scheduling to students who have continued lessons throughout the entire year. In order to reserve your spot in the studio, a minimum of two lessons per month during July and August are required, in addition to summer tuition of four lessons (whether or not the student attends those lessons). Students who fail to meet these requirements during the summer are not guaranteed a lesson time in the fall.

Unavoidable Conflicts

Most teachers do not offer lesson reschedules, but as a parent who also pays for her own children’s music lessons, Melissa understands how expensive missed lessons are. She also understands that life happens, and that sometimes, conflicts are unavoidable. In effort to accommodate life (sports, church, birthday/school parties) Melissa will provide a contact list/schedule available for all parents that allows participants to exchange lessons.

Power Outages

Melissa’s home/studio is equipped with a generator that will provide heat and light for lessons in the event of a power outage. Please come to your scheduled lesson time even if the power is out and school has been cancelled. This will help to prevent the difficult task of having to coordinate make-up lessons for the entire studio. Melissa is also able to teach via FaceTime of Skype, though the sound quality of these lessons will not be as good (FaceTime is preferred). Please contact Melissa for more information about FaceTime lessons. She provides all current students with her phone number.

Inclement Weather

For weather-related cancellations, please follow the Northshore School District’s decision on school closing. If it is too dangerous to travel to my home a FACE TIME lesson will be substituted during your regular lesson time.

Illness

As a courtesy to other students and families, please do not bring your child to their lesson if they are sick. If your child is in the contagious stages of a cold, please contact Melissa to discuss whether or not they should come. If a student comes to a lesson with a fever or other obvious symptoms, Melissa will send your student home and there will not be a make up lesson. With only 3 make up lessons per year, it would be tempting to send an ill student to the lesson. However, please do not do this, especially if they have missed school that day. Melissa is happy to FACE TIME or SKYPE (Melissa Malouf, maloufpiano@gmail.com).

Injury

If your student becomes injured and you question whether or not they can continue with lessons, please contact Melissa. She has resources that allow students to continue developing their uninjured hand. She has had great success working with students by developing strength and technique in the uninjured hand/arm/shoulder.

Teacher Absences

In the unusual case that Melissa need to cancel a lesson, she will set aside time for a make-up lesson as soon as possible. It will not count towards your 3 make-up allowances. If a make-up lesson is not possible in this scenario, she will provide a credit/refund for the lesson (credits/refunds will not be provided for any other missed lessons).

Holidays

See the studio calendar for more information.

Running Late

If you are running behind, or have sudden sick child, that will affect lesson times, please text me. Melissa does not answer phone calls during lesson times but will watch for any text messages.

How to Make-up a Lesson

For vacation reschedules, please notify Melissa at the beginning of the month, or at least two weeks in advance. She will do her best to find a time that works for both of you.

For families with multiple students taking lessons—if only one of the lessons need to be rescheduled, please confirm the start and end time for your other student’s lessons. Melissa will fill the cancelled slot with another student in need of a makeup lesson. Please do not assume that your entire reserved time slot remains the same if you cancel one of the lessons.

How to Exchange Lessons

If you would like to change lesson times for anything other than sickness/vacation, you will need to contact other students yourself and exchange lesson times. Please send out an email to all parents inquiring if anyone is available for a lesson exchange. Always CC Melissa on these requests so that she is aware of any schedule changes. This will allow her to adjust her lesson plans accordingly.

Please keep in mind the following when exchanging lesson times with other students:

The studio contact list is for rescheduling lessons and intended for private use only.
When exchanging lesson times, please try to exchange with a lesson time that has an equal duration as your student’s lesson time. For example, it will not be possible to receive a 45-minute lesson in exchange for a 30-minute lesson because it will affect the schedules of many other students. If it is the only time that will work, the longer lesson time will be reduced to equal the length of the shorter lesson (unless it is at the beginning or end of the teaching schedule for that day).
Please inform Melissa of all changes to the schedule.
If two families show up at the same lesson time, Melissa will plan to teach the originally scheduled family.