Recap

Last week I made arrangements for a casual piano performance and pizza party for my kid students and sent an email to coordinate a date for a slightly classier piano dinner party with my adult students, which one of my students will host.

The other big decision I had to make was when my last day of teaching in Maryland will be.

It’s funny what a difference a few days make. As things get more hectic and the reality of how much there is to do sets in, it suddenly becomes much easier to make some of these decisions, haha!

My last day will be November 2 and we’re looking at moving dates between November 7 and 15.

What I’m Doing This Week

1. Emailing Studio Families

I’ll probably overthink this email, but there are basically two* key pieces of content I need to communicate:

• Announce last teaching date
• Request testimonials to add to my teaching site
• Mention virtual Skype/FaceTime lessons as a temporary or long-term option for lessons (I’m not sure if I want a fully virtual studio, but I’ve been offering lessons this way for snow days and sick days, so I’m willing to give it a try if a student is really interested.)

*If I knew where we were moving to, I might also include my new address in this email. Several students send me Christmas cards and I want to encourage that to keep happening. 😊

2. Collecting and Returning Things

Thankfully I’ve had good systems in place and really awesome students, so I don’t have any outstanding payments to collect. I am reviewing my list of lent books, though, and making sure I get all of those back!

Collect and Return

• Outstanding payments and/or credits
• Books lent to (or borrowed from) students and colleagues

3. Interviewing Area teachers

When I moved to Maryland five years ago, half of the students I taught through my music school and the other half were in a city about 35 minutes away (remnants of my high school/college studio!).

It was relatively easy to transition the music school students to other teachers in the school when I left, but I wanted to help the non-school students get connected to good teachers, too.

I spent quite a bit of time interviewing teachers and making recommendations for each student. In the end, every one of them just ended up going to a teacher a friend studied with.

I wasn’t offended by this, just surprised.

I assumed my families here would follow a similar path, but I’ve actually had the opposite experience.

Some have already interviewed teachers that weren’t great fits. One mom, after a so-so interview, just flat out told me “whoever you recommend, that is who we will go to.”

It just goes to show that different regions have different perspectives and expectations!

And now interviewing teachers is back on my to-do list. 🙂

• Assemble list of local teacher friends
• Call nearby teachers from local Music Teacher’s National Association chapter
• Use Facebook teacher groups to connect with nearby teachers who use the same piano methods and/or have similar teaching philosophies

4. Brainstorming and Preparing Gifts for Students

I would love to do this, but it’s the lowest item on my priority list this week. It may not get done, and that’s OK.

I’m already planning to send a personal thank you note to each student and family after the move (when I have more brain power to string meaningful words together!), so these gifts would just be a little extra.

In the background, we’re getting floors refinished, carpets replaced, starting to pack, prepping the house to go on the market next week, and trying to get moving companies through the house between flooring jobs to give us estimates for transporting our stuff.

No shortage of excitement here!

How have you said goodbye to students?