Starting a School of Music

Question: Can a church start a School of Music Ministry offering both individual and group lessons? What legal issues do we have if we use people in our church who have music degrees and allow them to charge for the lessons?

Answer: Yes, our church did this for 5 years.

First, every instructor should have a complete background check performed, especially if they are working with children.

The easiest way to facilitate this vision is for the church to allow its facilities to be used but not hire or direct the instructors. As independant contractors they schedule thier own instruction, collect their own payments, handle their own missed appointments, etc.

We chose a more complex model. We actually preq1ualified the instructors, charged the students $2 more per lesson to administrate the entire instruction experience, collected the payments, mediated disputes, paid the instructors, etc. In this method the instructors are not independant contractors. As employees they must be compensated as such...which means we had to handle payroll, deduct taxes, etc.