Scheduling Policies

Subscription scheduling

For Sub­scrip­tion Plan stu­dents, lessons are sched­uled at the same time each week (e.g., every Wednes­day at 6:00 PM) year-round, except for planned absences (see below). At the begin­ning of each cal­en­dar month, I update the next 3 months worth of upcom­ing lessons on my cal­en­dar, and you will be able to view and mod­i­fy these appoint­ments on my Online Sched­uler by log­ging in to your Acu­ity Sched­ul­ing client account. (What’s that?)

Instructor-initiated schedule adjustments

Planned absences

I do not offer lessons on the fol­low­ing hol­i­days:

  • New Year’s Eve→Day
  • Elec­tion Day (spring)
  • Memo­r­i­al Day
  • June­teenth
  • Inde­pen­dence Day
  • Labor Day
  • Elec­tion Day (fall)
  • Thanks­giv­ing Day
  • Christ­mas Eve→Day

I also take one week each sum­mer (usu­al­ly 10 days begin­ning the Fri­day fol­low­ing the Inde­pen­dence Day hol­i­day) to par­tic­i­pate in Shenan­doah Conservatory’s Insti­tute for Con­tem­po­rary Com­mer­cial Music Vocal Ped­a­gogy, and an addi­tion­al week of fam­i­ly vaca­tion dur­ing the year.

These planned absences are fac­tored into the tuition rates for Sub­scrip­tion stu­dents, so no make-ups are offered for these absences.

Unplanned absences

As much as I wish I could guar­an­tee oth­er­wise, life does present the occa­sion­al per­son­al, fam­i­ly, or pro­fes­sion­al con­flict that requires me to can­cel lessons. I will com­mu­ni­cate unplanned absences as ear­ly as pos­si­ble, and will coor­di­nate with stu­dents to resched­ule or offer cred­it for lessons missed as a result.

Inclement weather

If weath­er con­di­tions war­rant it—if the roads are unsafe, for exam­ple, or if the park­ing area at my teach­ing loca­tion is snow-covered—I may opt to hold sched­uled lessons online instead of in per­son. (See this page for more infor­ma­tion about online lessons.) In these cas­es I will send email and text noti­fi­ca­tions to all affect­ed stu­dents as soon as the deci­sion is made.

 

Student-initiated schedule adjustments

Planned absences

If upcom­ing plans (trav­el, rehearsals, work com­mit­ments, etc.) will con­flict with a sched­uled les­son, I ask that you vis­it my online Sched­uler, log in to your Acu­ity client account, and resched­ule the les­son as ear­ly as pos­si­ble, so that the sched­uled les­son time becomes avail­able to oth­ers.

Illness

If you or a mem­ber of your house­hold are expe­ri­enc­ing fever, cough, fatigue, short­ness of breath, chills, body aches, diar­rhea, or vom­it­ing in the days pre­ced­ing your les­son, I ask that you choose one of three options:

  1. At any point up to 24 hours in advance of your les­son, you may choose to resched­ule your les­son to a lat­er date.  This is usu­al­ly the best option, as it allows you to recov­er and meet with me in per­son when you’re func­tion­ing at clos­er to 100%.  If you have dif­fi­cul­ty resched­ul­ing through my online Sched­uler, you may con­tact me direct­ly.
  2. If the 24-hour resched­ul­ing win­dow has passed, or if you have time-sen­si­tive goals and don’t want to lose the sched­uled appoint­ment time, you may wish to switch your in-per­son les­son to an online les­son.  To do this, please con­tact me direct­ly as soon as pos­si­ble, so that I have time to pre­pare any need­ed resources for the online for­mat. I will make the change in your Acu­ity cal­en­dar and con­firm with you.
  3. If you or a mem­ber of your house­hold is ill and nei­ther of the above options is pos­si­ble, please can­cel your les­son. You can do that by log­ging into your Acu­ity client account through my online Sched­uler, or by con­tact­ing me direct­ly.

Stu­dents who arrive for an in-per­son les­son while pre­sent­ing with res­pi­ra­to­ry symp­toms will be dis­missed and their les­son can­celled.  Please note that, regard­less of the rea­son for the can­cel­la­tion, I do not offer dis­counts, refunds, or make-up ses­sions for lessons can­celed by stu­dents.

Pay-Per-Lesson Scheduling

Stu­dents for whom week­ly lessons are not con­ve­nient may sched­ule lessons indi­vid­u­al­ly up to 30 days in advance.  Pay­ment is due for PPL lessons at the time of book­ing, though PPL stu­dents may find it more con­ve­nient to pur­chase pre­paid bun­dles for lessons and sim­ply apply their code bal­ance to lessons as they sched­ule them.

PPL lessons may be resched­uled (to a date up to 30 days in advance) until 24 hours pri­or to the appoint­ment time.  No cred­it, refund, or make-up ses­sion will be offered for a PPL les­son can­celled with less than 24 hours notice.

“No-show” appointments

Regard­less of the type of appoint­ment, if a stu­dent is more than 5 min­utes late in arriv­ing (or log­ging in for an online les­son) and has not con­tact­ed me to indi­cate that they expect to be late and/or are en route, I will assume the stu­dent has can­celled the les­son and for­got­ten to noti­fy me, and will mark the les­son “no-show.”  No cred­it, refund, or make-up ses­sion will be offered for a “no-show” appoint­ment.  Sub­scrip­tion Plan stu­dents who accrue a num­ber of “no-show” appoint­ments may be required to switch to the Pay-Per-Les­son plan at the end of their cur­rent sub­scrip­tion term.