3 Ways to Ensure Your Teaching Policies Are Enforceable

We all know the fable of the Boy Who Cried Wolf. A bored shepherd boy repeatedly tricks a group of villagers to come help him drive away a wolf, so often, that when a wolf really is attacking his flock they don’t bother to come. The moral of the story: No one believes a liar, even when they’re telling the truth.

We private piano teachers could really take this lesson to heart. We know that having a written policy is vital to our business, so we write one. Then something comes up, and we give someone a little wiggle room. Then something else comes up, and we wiggle a little more. Then the day comes that we really need to enforce some part of our policy, and our clients are incensed that we are actually sticking to our policies this time.

As kind-hearted educators, we want to prioritize our students’ music educations and make our clients happy, so we often find ourselves inclined to make exceptions. Here’s the rub, though: If we are always making exceptions, no one is ever going to take us seriously.

Why is this phenomenon so common in our industry? Here’s my theory: We write our policies to be too strict, and we later feel guilty enforcing them. (This issue of feeling guilt over enforcing policies that are vital to our livelihoods is another huge problem in our industry, but that’s a topic for another day.)

So how do we remedy this?

Here are 3 ways to ensure that your policies are enforceable.

1. Avoid writing anything into your policies that you do not plan to enforce.

It seems silly that I even need to say this, but this happens so often! A teacher will have a policy of only one make-up lesson per semester and habitually offer more than that. Another teacher may have a 24-hour cancelation policy yet consistently offer credits for lessons cancelled within that window.

I frequently see teachers asking variations of this question: “I have this written in my policy, should I enforce it?”

The short answer is yes. If it’s in your policy, you need to enforce it, but you should also consider whether or not you want that written into your policy in the first place.

A few things to ask yourself if you find yourself up against a policy you’re tempted to ignore:

1. Is this policy vital to your livelihood and the life of your business?
2. If you were your own client, how would you feel about this policy?
3. Is this a situation that you even need a written policy for, or is this something rare that you can address on a case-by-case basis?

2. Keep your policies short and to the point.

It’s really hard to enforce policies that no one has read. Your policy document should be one page and have large font, wide margins, and bullet points. If you want people to read it, it needs to be something that people have time to read.

Parents are busy, and piano is not the only activity they are signing their kids up for. They don’t have the time or inclination to read a five-page document that covers all of the minutiae of every circumstance that may come up over the course of their child’s piano career. They want to know four things:

1. How much do lessons cost, and how/when do I pay?
2. When are lessons?
3. What do I do if I need to cancel/reschedule a lesson?
4. What happens if we want to discontinue lessons?

3. Sometimes make exceptions.

I know. I just spent this whole article saying that we are only as good as our word, and we can’t make exceptions if we want people to take us seriously, but the keyword here is “sometimes.”

The villagers came to help the boy who cried wolf a few more times after that first trick. Sometimes there will be extenuating circumstances when an exception may be called for. Only you can make these calls based on your values, relationships with your clients, and personal needs.

As physicist Niels Bohr said, “The opposite of a great truth is also true.” Keeping your word by sticking to your policies develops trust with your clients, but so does occasionally making an exception.

Piano teachers often lament not being taken seriously as business-people. If we all had reasonable policies that were enforced with regularity, we would definitely be taking a step in the right direction.

Looking for a practical guide on the art of piano teaching? Check out Professional Piano Teaching , by Jeanine Jacobson.

How do you make sure your private studio policies are enforceable? Let us know in the comments below!