Mike Risko Music School Reviews

The pay rate is terrible compared to how much money the parents are paying for the kid to take the lesson. Also expect to not get paid for sitting around since there is a huge gap between lessons. I had to wait once for 2 hours just for a student to cancel AND I still didn't get paid for that canceled lesson. Every time I walked in, there were new people and people who left which is never a good sign. That simply means that no one wants to stay with the job due to all the issues. Not to mention, I did not get paid the correct amount of money and the money would always come in late. They have an assigned day but more than likely since they are unorganized they will misplace it. The last pay I got was only for one lesson even though it should have been for 2 weeks worth of lessons. If you do work here, keep track of your hours because even though they have it written down, they will forget "by mistake". Also Mike will call you and ask if you can teach a lesson with short notice and he will be disappointed if you say no. He'll be very pushy and unprofessional by asking "why not?" "what are you doing instead?" It's possible that you live far from the school so if you are given 10 minutes notice and the school is 20 minutes away, that simply won't work. Also the majority of people that you teach are very little kids because no adult would want to take mediocre lessons with the “mike risko method” unless they want to be in the band group they offer. Also the teachers are pressured to teach instruments they do not play. The expectations to be hired are super low but don’t let that fool you because they will take advantage of you no matter how talented you are.

Expect to be micro-managed, and be corrected in front of your students. You are hired as an "independent contractor" but treated as employee. (I am surprised they can still get away with this after the Uber lawsuit) Expect to not be paid for holes in your schedule. For example if you have students from 4-6pm, then a student at 8pm you are expected to wait 2 hours without pay. The entire staff pretty much hates their job. Very high turn-over of people working there. You have to teach the "Mike Risko" method, which is basically a racket to charge people more money.