contracts for instructors

[packard]

Hi All,

I know the contract debate has been wide and varied on the site over the years.

But do any school owners tie thier instructors into teaching contracts?

For example - should they leave your school, they should not open another in X distance from where you are? or take your students with them??

Any thoughts or examples?

P

[Lama Pai Sifu]

That would be considered an "non-compete" clause that you can either have separately or connected to their standard 'employment contract'.

If their wording is to broad, they won't be enforceable. You can't have a non-compete for more than 2-3 years after their termination/quitting and you can't really enforce more than a 10 mile radius. At least not in NY.

Other than that, you can have control over your curriculum and can even trademark it, IF you can prove it's unique. You can't trademark a form that everyone does and is all over the web.

[David Jamieson]

Swearing an oath is required, but unfortunately has not much weight in a society that is stupefied by its self interest.

the setting isn't right for such valorous deeds.

I suppose a legally binding contract with legal penalties is the only thing that would hold someone to an oath of sorts, which is unfortunate as well.

[cjurakpt]

I don't know about MA, but in health care you find non-compete's all the time in regards to employment of docs / therapists in private practices; often they will stipulate that if you leave a PP, you can't a) directly solicit patients from that PP (e.g. - by stealing the PP's mailing list and using it to advertise your new location; advertising on a local newspaper, however, would not be covered by that, as it's non-specific); b) can't operate in a certain distance radius (usually 10 - 20 mi. in the 'burbs; in NYC it can be as little as 10 blocks; you also need to be careful if the PP has multiple offices, and be clear as to whether it's the distance from the specific site you worked in or from any of their sites) and / or c) for a certain period of time (usually ~1 - 2 yrs.);

however, these clauses can be tricky to enforce, the main reason being that you can't legally deny someone livelihood; - so for example, if you were let go from a PP because they were downsizing or if they just decided that they didn't like you for some reason, and a position opened up at a local community hospital still w/in the proscribed distance, the non-compete would probably be non-enforceable, as that position would be inherently non-competitive; OTOH, if you left a place specifically to open up your own PP down the street, that's pretty obvious what you are trying to do, and that would be a clear violation of the agreement; I think the same could apply in the case of MA, at least to some degree (e.g. - if you went to teach at the local YMCA maybe?)

the other piece is that you can't deny patients access to the treatment they want - so if you fire someone, if their former patients track them down on their own, you can't place any sort of barrier that would enable the patient to take advantage of treatment that he finds beneficial; I imagine the same would hold true for recreational activities...

I have seen both ends play out: for example, one owner of an OT/PT agency who was supplying 3 therapists to a local school district let them all go without any legal action when the district hired all three directly on staff, costing her ~90K / year, because she didn't want to jeopardize the possibility of still supplying therapists for cases that the district couldn't cover w/their in-house staff; on the flip side, I know of one PP where a former employee was fired due to personality conflicts w/the senior partners; the problem was that her father had been a former partner at that practice and had left amicably about a year before, essentially buying out his portion of the practice, and opening shop literally down the block; so when she left, she went to work for her dad, and all her patients followed, but without her "paying" for them; six years later, the litigation is just wrapping up...

[ngokfei]

In the health club industry they also use an "exclusitivity"? Agreement.

where you can only work for the particular gym. I guess it must have something similar to the 10 mile radius thing.

Franchise is the way to go

[TenTigers]

Basically, what we do is upon hiring, create a file on the instructor.
This file has his picture, address, pics of his wife, kids, where she works, where they go to school, as well as any other family members.
When the instructor leaves, we isuue what we like to refer to as "an incentive." This can come in many forms; a picture, an article of clothing, a lock of hair, a finger, ear, or a horse's head.
So far, we have never had any incident (that we are aware of) of a former instructor competing with us.

[mawali]

I personally do not believe in such contracts in CMA becasue it was not a part of the relationship between myself and my teachers! My previous CMA teachers did not teach like that so i am hesitant and even wary of that kind of strategy.

If a teacher has something to offer, you study with him/her as long as you feel you are learning. Interstingly modern teachers are clever in keeping students for years without them learning anything i.e structure/concept/principle and many follow the health club contract operating principles. which seems to be working with that audience.

I use to offer 12 (3 hours at one sitting per week) hour of instruction for $225.00/month while my brethren offered 4 hours per month and people were happy paying close to $150.00 per month and they were happy! It was said that 3 hours was too long for training/instruction plus I required students to practice an additional 2-3 hours per week on their own and that was too much because I told them to practice. Naturally, that did not last long. Now I have just 1-2 students a month!

True CMA cannot survive on the health club model though many will survive but are they teaching relevant stuff. Time will tell!
I am not against the health club model but for me that was never my relationship with my teachers!

[ironsifu]

I personally do not believe in such contracts in CMA becasue it was not a part of the relationship between myself and my teachers...

i really agree with you. this business is not suppose to be a business. i HOPE my students leave to open there own schools! as a teacher you are giving your students something they can one day use for a career, the same way our teachers did it for us. its only best.

but i can understand if you hire from the outside. i do that, but everyone i hire becomes my student before he starts teaching for me. i have three instructors i hired, and all three got the black belt from a competing school. but like a student who joins, they are learning something new, and they accept that i am the teacher, they are the students. i believe if you make this kind of relationship, then you dont have to worry. if you treat them well, pay them good, you dont have to worry.