Lesson Fees 

• Monthly Lessons

  • Monthly Lesson fees never vary and are due the first lesson week of each month.

    • 30 minute lessons – $130 monthly

    • 45 minute lessons – $195 monthly

    • 60 minute lessons – $260 monthly

  • The lesson fees are always due at the first week of lessons each month, regardless of any student absences. Your lesson fee holds your lesson time slot for the month.

  • Please note that while most months have 4 lessons, some months may have more or less, and the lesson fee will always be the same from month to month. Please review my calendar for our schedule.

• Single lesson fees must be received in order to confirm your lesson.

  • Single 30 minute lesson – $32.50 each

  • Single 45 minute lesson – $48.75 each

  • Single 60 minute lesson – $65 each

• Unless I’ve made an error, lesson fees are non-refundable, so please be sure that we have agreed to & confirmed a convenient lesson time. Don’t hesitate to get in touch if you have any scheduling issues and I'll do my best to accommodate you!

• Lesson fees can be paid using my online lesson store (which includes a $5 fee to help mitigate PayPal/Venmo/Square’s cut), a check made out to either "Ian Leinbaugh" or "IanHFL, LLC" and mailed to my home address, or, if taking monthly lessons, by setting up a monthly online subscription or bank draft. 

Attendance

• Students are expected to arrive on time to their lesson each week. Again, I do not offer refunds, so please be sure that you have a lesson time that you can consistently attend. 

  • I ask that students get in touch if they are running late or will not be able to make their scheduled lesson. If I receive prior notice I’ll happily provide a lesson with whatever time is remaining, but your lesson time will not be extended. 

  • You are always welcome to attend your lesson virtually rather than be late or absent; simply let me know and we’ll make it happen.

  • If you are more than 15 minutes late without prior notice you will be marked absent and the lesson will be canceled.

  • Late arrivals do not count as absences and will not be made up during makeup weeks.

• Always feel free to get in touch if you need to change to a more convenient lesson time! Most students take lessons year-round and I am happy to work with schedules that change due to seasonal extracurricular activities or anything else.

• If taking in-person lessons, you will receive our address and the remaining details upon confirmation of the lesson time.

• If attending lessons virtually, you can join the lesson by clicking this link. This is the same link we will use each week while online (or should we ever need to close due to weather or other reasons in the future), even if we eventually shift to a new time. 

• Parents, family, and legal guardians are welcome to sit in and observe their child’s in-person lesson. In the case of very young students, parents may be required to attend the lesson with their child. All individuals must adhere to the safety protocol detailed below.

Absences/Makeup Lessons   

• Three times a year makeup lessons are offered for student absences. These occur only during designated makeup weeks (see calendar). Each student is guaranteed one (1) makeup lesson per makeup week.

  • While I do my best to make up extra missed lessons or temporarily shift lessons around to accommodate schedule changes, it is not always possible to do so. With this in mind, if you would like to change your lesson time for an upcoming month to better fit your schedule, simply let me know and we'll work to find a good solution! 

  • If a lesson is missed due to weather or any other event outside of the control of both the student and the instructor (eg, inclement weather and power outage preventing virtual lessons), I will do my best to make up that lesson prior to, or during, our upcoming makeup week. Unfortunately, I can only guarantee one makeup lesson during the next makeup week, but please know that I will do my best to find time for extra makeup lessons for lessons missed due to weather and other situations that cause schools to close.

• A number of my students travel or have camp during the summer months. I think that's an important part of being human and want to support that! To avoid losing your lesson time as a result of temporary schedule changes, you may request up to 4 weeks of vacation from June 1st through September 5th to accommodate summer activities. I will reserve your lesson time and prorate billing for these dates if they are received no later than May 25th. 

• Lesson cancelled by me will always made up (or the following lesson month will be prorated accordingly if for any reason a makeup is not possible) and do not count as student-initiated absences.

Terminating/pausing lessons 

• Lessons operate on a month-to-month basis. If you want or need to withdraw from lessons for any reason I ask for that you provide a written notice at least 14 days prior to the end of the calendar month so that I can adjust my schedule accordingly. 

Closures 

• When the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools system closes due to inclement weather, I will conduct virtual lessons at the regularly scheduled times.

  • However, on rare occasion, I may still offer lessons (as I did during the first couple days that schools were closed due to hurricane Florence), and if so, we'll be in touch and give students the options of attending or receiving a makeup lesson. 

  • In the event of an unanticipated closure, students will be notified by email; be sure that you’re on the mailing list! 

  • In case of notification from the Emergency Broadcast System, we will stop lessons/classes and follow instructions to either take shelter or evacuate.

• I am closed for roughly 6 weeks of the year around major holidays that typically align with the CHCCS calendar. Please see my calendar for our schedule.

Newsletter, Websites, and Social Media

• I send out a monthly newsletter on the 1st of each month, and you'll occasionally get updates if there's something relevant to all students during the month (e.g., holiday reminders, weather-related closings, etc); it's my primary means of mass communication with students, so I want to be sure you're in the loop! You & any interested family members can sign up for my email list by clicking this link.

• You can access my website at IanHFL.com. 

• You can find me on Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook.

  • I created a Facebook group for all of my current and former students! If you're on Facebook and would like to learn more and/or join, please click here! I'm hoping that this will help us stay connected and engaged during this time (the global pandemic, to be sure!) and beyond, and I'd love to see you all posting questions, cool things you're working on, neat gear, or really anything else music/lesson-related!

Food & Drink 

• Food and beverages may not be consumed inside the lesson space, as all of us should be fully & properly masked during the entirety of the lesson. That said, you may bring water and step outside to have a quick drink

Smoking

• In-person lessons occur in a smoke-free zone. Smoking or vaping is not allowed on the property.

Health and Safety

• ​I will continue to conduct in-person lessons on our back porch with safety precautions, outlined below, until further notice. 

• Please be sure to arrange details for in-person lessons with me at least one day before your first lesson. 

• All students taking in-person lessons must adhere to these policies, so thank you for taking the time and energy to read through them; it’s a lot, but this is what allows these lessons to happen, so it's very much appreciated!

• Why have these policies? I am committed to protecting the health and safety of our students, instructors, and all of our families, especially for the most vulnerable members of our community during the ongoing pandemic(s). Aside from being high-risk myself, I have high-risk family, students, bandmates, and families thereof, so we all appreciate everyone adhering to our policies. 

  • In an attempt to keep the required reading to a minimum, please download the full document and refer to the footnotes if you would like additional information regarding some of the points below; you will also find a list of reference sources and useful resources in this document.

  • This is a stressful time for everyone, and all questions, comments, concerns, and suggestions are strongly encouraged; we want to be sure that everyone has clarity and feels completely safe!

• Online lessons will always be an option regardless of the transmission level.

• To help navigate changing CDC guidelines & messaging, I am constantly reviewing the latest scientific data & recommendations to prioritize the health of our whole community. With that in mind, here are additional notes and policies for in-person lessons:

  • All students (and myself!) must have received at least the initial dose of a SARS-CoV-2 vaccine, with possible booster requirements in the future. I will ask for your vaccination card at our first in-person lessons, and possibly after new boosters are recommended for a minimum baseline of protection.

  • When arriving for lessons or picking up your student, please wait at the gate to the backyard unless we have made other arrangements.

  • Everyone must be properly masked beyond the gate to the backyard.

  • While we do not yet have a designated waiting area, parents/family may wait for their student in their car, in the driveway, or in the gravel area of our backyard.

  • All students, and I myself, must be properly masked (worn snugly, with no gaps, over mouth and nose) for the entire lesson.

    • Especially with my super high-risk mother-in-law here, we have to be very careful, so please do remember to ensure that you have a properly fitting mask and that it stays nice & snug for the entirety of the lesson--and parents, please remind your kids of this! 

    • If I notice your mask coming off your face to where I can see a gap around your nose or mouth I will pause the lesson until we get a proper fit. 

    • I strongly recommend a KN95 or better (e.g., N95 respirator with head straps, such as the 3M Aura, my go-to respirator). While cloth & surgical masks are absolutely better than no masks, they are proven to be far less effective in protecting the wearer and those in the vicinity. For that reason, I will no longer accept cloth masks—the least effective of the bunch— as of April 1st, and I’m afraid that’s no April Fools joke. It is highly likely that I will nix surgical masks in May in anticipation of the end of the pandemic state of emergency on May 11th.

    • To be sure, I'll always have backup masks for y’all (almost certainly N95s), and I am happy to donate masks. Cost may be an issue in securing quality masks for our lessons and other activities, so don’t hesitate ask for however many masks you need I’ll do my best to make it happen with whatever supplies I’ve got! I will also happily share details on how to reuse your masks! 

    • I know masks are annoying and they can droop, but I'm afraid this is super important so I'll be increasingly vigilant with this and will pause the lesson and ask students to use one of my N95 respirators if there are any persistent fit issues.

    • Thanks to ample misinformation, there is a lot of confusion on different types of masks and their relative efficacy, so if you’re looking for further resources on the science to get a better sense of my reasoning, please do check the references in the downloadable copy of these policies.

    • If you need to sneeze, blow your nose, have a drink of water, or temporarily remove your mask for any reason, please feel free to step out to the gravel area of our backyard to do so.

  • Students must have had no cold or flu-like symptoms within the last 7 days. I’ll ask you about this at the beginning of each lesson, as individuals may remain contagious for roughly ten days since contracting the virus. 

    • If you, like me, have a chronic health condition that causes symptoms associated with COVID-19 on a daily basis, please don’t hesitate to let me know and I’ll happily work out a plan to navigate lessons in these circumstances.

• If a student does not meet all the criteria I will turn them away and offer a makeup lesson during our next makeup week. That won’t be fun for anyone, so if you’re feeling at all sick—even if you think it’s allergies—or not up for any of the requirements, please just let me know and we can have our lesson online instead!

• I use the Aranet4 to monitor CO2 levels, which provides a rough idea of the quality of ventilation in the lesson space; please see below for references if curious. My aim is to keep the ventilation such that we’d be fairly safe even if we were unmasked and one of us had COVID, with masks being a further layer of protection.

  • You will see me adjusting fans and screens if ventilation needs to be increased, and don’t hesitate to ask if you have questions about airflow on the porch. Also a thank you to my students who have been helping me keep an eye on these numbers; your vigilance is tremendously appreciated!

While I’m holding porch lessons regardless of the transmission data at present, that may become a reference point again in the future. If so, data may dictate pausing in-person lessons again, so please be aware that we may shift to online-only lessons at any time.

• The data on COVID-19 for Orange county is available at the CDC data tracker here.

• The metrics used to determine transmission risk can be seen here or in the graphic below. The CDC no longer has these guidelines easily available (or at least I’m having a hard time finding them in a consistent location!), so to be sure, these were taken from the CDC site linked above on February 28th, 2022. ​​