As the “owner” of a small bushiban, my headaches are many… Some just come up occasionally, some quite often. How do you as a school owner/manager handle this stuff…or how does the school you work at handle it…
kids who take time off and want to make up classes…Do you return the money? Do you make up the classes 1 on 1 with the kids? Do you make up the classes in groups? I’ve been doing it once a month or so on Sunday mornings :fume: and a couple of days ago a parent complained that they can’t make it then, ever, and want me to do it on Sunday afternoons too. :fume: :fume: I’m the main teacher, there’s no Chinese TA in the class. We have done it all ways mentioned above and there seems to be no good solution. Some of my friends with schools do NO make ups, but that seems a little unfair.
Taking extended leave…(all of summer/ winter vacation, time off before the high school entrance exams) Again, give back $$$ or tough luck?
Discounts …As of now, we don’t give discounts. We have lots of families with 2 or 3 kids studying but don’t have discounts for them. Some strangers insist on discounts but don’t get one. We used to give one time discounts to parents who introduce new kids. How do you handle that?
Policy changes…If we do want to make changes, especially about $$$ what is the best way to do it and not have angry parents? Send home a note, call 1 by 1, have a meeting (scary!!). Up to now, we have had a lot of nice parents, usually pretty easy to deal with, but people tend to get cranky when it comes to money (especially if they feel like they are losing out!).
Getting parents to accept other teachers…Because we don’t advertise, parents who come to us want me to teach their kids. We have lots of people waiting and a spare classroom (only used twice a week) but they just won’t accept another foreign teacher. They just say they’ll wait…and they do! One mom waited a year for there to be an opening for her kids. I could open 2 or 3 more classes if I could convince them to try a different teacher.
[quote=“americanmama”]As the “owner” of a small buxiban, my headaches are many… Some just come up occasionally, some quite often. How do you as a school owner/manager handle this stuff…or how does the school you work at handle it…
kids who take time off and want to make up classes…Do you return the money? Do you make up the classes 1 on 1 with the kids? Do you make up the classes in groups? I’ve been doing it once a month or so on Sunday mornings :fume: and a couple of days ago a parent complained that they can’t make it then, ever, and want me to do it on Sunday afternoons too. :fume: :fume: I’m the main teacher, there’s no Chinese TA in the class. We have done it all ways mentioned above and there seems to be no good solution. Some of my friends with schools do NO make ups, but that seems a little unfair.
Taking extended leave…(all of summer/ winter vacation, time off before the high school entrance exams) Again, give back $$$ or tough luck?
Discounts …As of now, we don’t give discounts. We have lots of families with 2 or 3 kids studying but don’t have discounts for them. Some strangers insist on discounts but don’t get one. We used to give one time discounts to parents who introduce new kids. How do you handle that?
Policy changes…If we do want to make changes, especially about $$$ what is the best way to do it and not have angry parents? Send home a note, call 1 by 1, have a meeting (scary!!). Up to now, we have had a lot of nice parents, usually pretty easy to deal with, but people tend to get cranky when it comes to money (especially if they feel like they are losing out!).
Getting parents to accept other teachers…Because we don’t advertise, parents who come to us want me to teach their kids. We have lots of people waiting and a spare classroom (only used twice a week) but they just won’t accept another foreign teacher. They just say they’ll wait…and they do! One mom waited a year for there to be an opening for her kids. I could open 2 or 3 more classes if I could convince them to try a different teacher.
Any other problems you face??
Any other tricks to share??
Thanks all!! [/quote]
To address question 1, it is not your school taking a break. It’s the family. If they choose to plan their vacations poorly so their child misses school, then it’s their fault. You shouldn’t have to accomodate them or bend over backwards and work extra hours just so they can prance off to God knows where for a few days. A public school doesn’t open on the weekends to accomodate those kids who were sick or on vacation. Why should you? As a matter of fact, a school would expect the students to make up the work they missed while they were on vacation. They should be considering themselves lucky that you don’t do that to them.
If kids from XYZ school miss school because of a big test, then unless all of them do, it shows that it’s not that necessary. This week I will lose half my class because there are tests at two of the elementary schools (although some of the kids from these schools will be coming to class so it can’t be that bad). We are in the middle of a project. They are still expected to complete their work as if they were here at school. If it were all the schools, then I could understand cancelling classes for that week, but if it’s only 1 or 2 schools, then continue on and tell the parents you’ll see little Johnny next week and good luck on the test.
Getting parents to accept another teacher: don’t tell them who will be teaching their kids until they’ve put their money down. Why is it necessary for them to know who the teacher will be if your program is consistent among all the classrooms?
Getting people to introduce their friends on a referral program is a touchy topic since not all the people they refer will be acceptable to your school. it also creates a network of families which could get together to take away a huge chunk of your student body. If you really need the students, though, you could try it and then lower the discount as your school filled up, but it’s very caveat emptor.
[quote=“americanmama”]As the “owner” of a small buxiban, my headaches are many… Some just come up occasionally, some quite often. How do you as a school owner/manager handle this stuff…or how does the school you work at handle it…
kids who take time off and want to make up classes…Do you return the money? Do you make up the classes 1 on 1 with the kids? Do you make up the classes in groups? I’ve been doing it once a month or so on Sunday mornings :fume: and a couple of days ago a parent complained that they can’t make it then, ever, and want me to do it on Sunday afternoons too. :fume: :fume: I’m the main teacher, there’s no Chinese TA in the class. We have done it all ways mentioned above and there seems to be no good solution. Some of my friends with schools do NO make ups, but that seems a little unfair.
We are upfront when they pay no make ups, we do take into account hospitalizations, extended leave, but we just add the classes to the end of the session, never return money! (If we wanted to get a student out of here bad enough we would refund money) Every situation is different.
Taking extended leave…(all of summer/ winter vacation, time off before the high school entrance exams) Again, give back $$$ or tough luck?
See above
Discounts …As of now, we don’t give discounts. We have lots of families with 2 or 3 kids studying but don’t have discounts for them. Some strangers insist on discounts but don’t get one. We used to give one time discounts to parents who introduce new kids. How do you handle that?
We decided on a price for our sessions and added 10% so we could be liberal with discounts of 5 or 10% depending on the circumstance, referral, sibing etc.
Policy changes…If we do want to make changes, especially about $$$ what is the best way to do it and not have angry parents? Send home a note, call 1 by 1, have a meeting (scary!!). Up to now, we have had a lot of nice parents, usually pretty easy to deal with, but people tend to get cranky when it comes to money (especially if they feel like they are losing out!).
We just change it, those that want to leave will leave anyway, do what is right for the school.
Getting parents to accept other teachers…Because we don’t advertise, parents who come to us want me to teach their kids. We have lots of people waiting and a spare classroom (only used twice a week) but they just won’t accept another foreign teacher. They just say they’ll wait…and they do! One mom waited a year for there to be an opening for her kids. I could open 2 or 3 more classes if I could convince them to try a different teacher.
Don’t sell your school as Teacher Michelle, never mention the teacher’s name when talking about the teacher, calling them Teacher is good enough. Open a new class and move yourself around to the other classes every few months. If they want you bad enough they will accept that you have to see to other classes and will cherish that you are their teacher 6 months out of the year. The other six months you can guarantee that your teachers will be better than most because your standards are higher!
