June 11, 2022 - Parents
What I've learned from becoming an educator: the most complicated group of people to deal with are not the students, not the musicians, not the lawyers, not the agents, not the union, but the parents.
Don't get me wrong. There are some truly awesome ones. These parents trust you implicitly, or are at least willing to collaborate. There are parents who go way above and beyond for the program. There are parents who volunteer to help the program find success.
I did a podcast interview with Andrew Frishman, Jordan and Lundy's dad. He is a perfect example.
Click on the video below to listen to Andrew Frishman's podcast episode.
I think a handful of parents don't understand that tuition alone does not pay for the program. Aside from unreimbursed volunteer time of the Leadership Team, there are administrative expenses not covered, and we pay out of pocket for guest mentors.
During our first few cohorts, it was all donation based. But let's be honest about it. It was disheartening for me to discover that a group of parents could not organize some sort of fundraiser amongst themselves to help support the program. Sell candy. Sell T-shirts. Sell your kids.
Stopping here. There are sets of a few parents who wrote donation checks, and that was incredibly helpful
In Fall of 2021, we started charging a nominal tuition. This only helped in a sense of some of the staff team wanted to be paid for their time for private mentoring. I didn't blame them, and I paid them. And I went out of pocket or through donations for the rest. This was never a problem for me except...
We ran a fundraiser this cohort. It was: find twenty $5 donors in 30 days, which got expanded to 45 days. The purpose of this wasn't to raise a ton of money, but to expand our mailing list. People participated in various ways. Only one family brought in twenty -- but they were also significant donors. One parent made their kid give up all of his birthday presents and directed funds to this fundraiser. (Harsh). One got three and expected me to make a big deal out of it.
One of our more advanced students who got a lot of extras -- extra mentoring, extra time at the recording session, etc. did not participate in fundraising at all and really only found minimal time to peer mentor or give back to the organization. I sent a note to all the parents because I was also disappointed in the free admission guest attendance at our season finale. But one parent sent us a long response letter that included this (1 of about 1000 complaints):
We are not surrounded by people with the means or even the interest to donate, so we didn’t feel comfortable asking for money or providing email addresses for the 30-day fundraiser. It is a significant financial commitment for us to support our student’s music in myriad ways, and in fact his Inception tuition has been covered by his dear 94-year-old adoptive grandmother, who can’t use a cell phone, let alone respond to email solicitations.
I can certainly appreciate that a program like Inception can only thrive with passionate commitment, but I’m tired.
Let's contrast this to Angela's dad who got his job to make a significant donation the years she was part of the program.
Another parent threw a fit at me because I didn't respond to her email that she wrote on a Friday night because I went out dancing. Immediately after this, we set up policies for parent communication. She also told us that she called a college professor and he told her that we should not be having our kids compose, but should be teaching the basics which she parroted back to us. Our response was that her student was allowed to join our seventeen month cohort more than half way in, and her composer should have watched the playback of the earlier sessions where we taught all that stuff.
And while I was in the middle of figuring out my heart condition (story upcoming), one mother decided the best course of communication was to get me on the phone and literally uncontrollably scream at me that her son wasn't thriving in our program and it was all my fault. She had two kids in the program and when the dad told me I was still "allowed" to mentor the second one, but wanted a different mentor for the older, I was done. In this case, it was clear that the older child was conferring with his mommy after every lesson because I would give him an assignment, and then he came back the next week with a completely changed idea. I was told that the kid took music lessons from two other music teachers and had no problems with them, and I was the only one. Except for the fact that despite taking music theory for three or four years, he had no idea how to construct a chord. The result, though, was that his music was innovative. Also, he had been taking singing lessons, but he couldn't hold pitch. That is not for lack of trying. This kid also produced the best music for two of the sessions he participated in.
But someone like that mom is countered by parents who serve on the Board and try to make connections for us and find money. It's just funny. I probably just had to let off steam about some of them. Although I will say thank you to all of them because it takes an army. But Frishmans, Escamillas, Young, Maguire, Schwartz, Lees (both sets), Pan, Sergeevs. Urrecheagas, (Sorry if I forgot anyone) a very special thank you for your generosity and participation.
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