Happy Wednesday, PMA teachers! Happy new year to all of you, and welcome back from Winter Break!
To get us started with Wednesday Words in 2024…
Now that we’re back to regular programming and scheduling, it bears mentioning that punctuality, attendance, and preparation are of utmost importance. With backing from Nicole, PMA has instituted the pay penalty if you do not submit your time off request AT LEAST two weeks ahead of time AND your sub plans AT LEAST one week ahead of time. We have had several occurrences recently in which sub plans have been submitted late, all the way up until the day of planned absence. When submitting your request, you will receive one courtesy email as a reminder to submit your sub plans by the deadline. If you do not adhere to the timeframe more than once, you WILL be docked pay for failure to follow PMA policy. If you are frequently requesting off the same day of the week, we may look into removing that day from your schedule to guarantee students more continuity and consistency. It is also critically important that you give at least two weeks’ worth of notice for time off requests! Emergencies happen, we get sick, we have important matters to tend to, and PMA will always be as accommodating as possible with regards to these issues. However, if your absence is planned, it is imperative that you give the heads-up so that we can find subs, notify parents as needed, and provide your subs with any materials necessary. If you have any questions, please reach out to Laura or myself.
It is also extremely important to be on time, set up, and ready to go when your lessons begin. We have had multiple issues with punctuality, and have received some complaints from parents/students about teacher tardiness and/or absence. If you cannot make your lessons on time for any day, we will be removing students from your schedule on that day in order to help you get to the studio on time. If you continue to be late on that day, we will close that day off and remove all students from your schedule for that day. The optimal outcome for us all is to never have to incorporate these policies/procedures, but with the recurrent problems over the past few months, a solution is essential.
Attendance concerns aside…please make sure you are up to date on your Musical Ladder testing! We had a great push toward the end of 2023, but after reviewing the board with testing updates, we have quite a few students that are due to test and move up as of year-end. If you need updates or help with scheduling tests, please let me know! I am more than happy to help out with establishing some guidelines for testing, when to do it, how to do it, etc. You can also locate two separate documents on the teacher resource page that give detailed breakdowns of the program.
Thanks for your hard work each and every day here at the academy. Without you, our growth, expansion, and development would not be possible. If you ever have any teaching or general concerns, please reach out to me! If anything pertaining to scheduling comes up, please speak with Laura. We are both happy to help and keep the train rolling. Cheers to a great 2024!