Terms of Service

Who we are and what this covers

Rising Stars Music School (operated by Betty and Mickey Corp) offers one-on-one music lessons and small group classes at 18-84 Stanhope St, Ridgewood, NY 11385, in your home by arrangement, and runs the app at app.risingstars-musicschool.com. These terms apply whenever you book a lesson, create an account, use the app, or attend a lesson or event with us. An adult sets up the account, agrees to these terms, and puts the card on file. A student 13 or older can have their own login to see their lessons, but the adult on the account is the one who agrees to these terms and pays. If you are booking for a student under 18, you are agreeing to these terms yourself, and you confirm you have the authority to enroll them and to pay for their lessons. Questions go to sean@risingstars-musicschool.com.

These terms apply from the day you accept them, which is the day you book through our site or app, or create your account. If you were already a student before September 6, 2026, we will email you these terms, and we will ask you to accept them the next time you book. Until you accept, we keep teaching you on the arrangement we already had.

How you accept these terms

You accept these terms when you tap Pay & Book or create an account, with a link to these terms shown next to that button. That electronic yes counts the same as a signature. We record the date, the version of the terms shown that day, and the account that accepted. Ask us and we will send you a copy of the version you accepted. If you are a parent or guardian, you accept for your child.

Lessons and booking

• Lessons are pay as you go. There are no packages, contracts, or trial lessons. Prices are shown by lesson length when you book.
• You book, move, and cancel lessons yourself in the app. A weekly booking is a standing lesson: the same day and time every week, charged to your card on file 24 hours before each lesson, until you end it. Ending it is free. On your lessons page in the app, tap Cancel recurring lesson hold, or email sean@risingstars-musicschool.com, and no further lessons are charged. A lesson already inside its 24 hour window still counts. To skip a single week instead, cancel that one lesson more than 24 hours ahead. There is no charge and your slot stays yours.
• We match a teacher to your slot. Teachers may change from time to time (a substitute for a call-out, a roster change), and the lesson is still a Rising Stars lesson.
• Group classes and bands run on their own per-session pricing and are charged the same way as lessons: 24 hours before each session.
• In-home lessons are priced separately and are booked with us directly, not in the app. Everything else here applies to them: pay as you go, the same 24 hour rule, and the same card on file.
• If we change our prices, we will email you at least 30 days before the new price applies to your lessons. The price shown in the app when you book a lesson is the price for that lesson.

Payment

• You keep a card on file through Stripe, our payment provider. Each lesson is charged to it 24 hours before the lesson starts. Once a charge goes through it is not refundable, except when we cancel the lesson (see Cancellations below).
• A lesson booked less than 24 hours before it starts is charged right away and is not refundable.
• You are telling us we can charge that card for your lessons without asking you again each time. You can change or remove the card any time on your profile in the app. If you remove it and do not add another, we cannot hold future lessons for you.
• If a charge fails, we will try the card a few more times over the next couple of weeks and let you know. We may pause new bookings while a balance is outstanding.
• We email a receipt for every charge. Tell us right away if one looks wrong.

Cancellations, late cancellations, and no-shows

• Cancel more than 24 hours before a lesson and there is no charge.
• Cancel inside 24 hours and the charge stands. That is a late cancellation. Your teacher has already reserved the time and is paid for it.
• A missed lesson with no cancellation is charged and is not made up.
• If your teacher is out, another Rising Stars teacher usually covers the lesson. We let you know who it is, and the lesson runs as booked. If we cannot cover it, we cancel it and you are not charged.
• If we cancel a lesson or class session for any reason, you do not pay for it. That includes a teacher we cannot cover, a snow day, a building problem like no heat or power, a public health order, or anything else that keeps us from running it. If the charge already went through, we refund it to your card (your bank may take several days to show it), or put it toward your next lesson if you prefer. Where it makes sense we may offer the lesson online instead. If that does not work for you, the refund or credit above applies. The refund or credit is all we owe for a lesson we cancel, including one you booked inside 24 hours. If the change is on your side, the 24 hour rule above applies.
• Going away? Cancel each lesson you will miss in the app, more than 24 hours ahead, and your weekly slot stays yours for up to four weeks in a row. If you will be away five weeks or longer, we release the slot to other families, and when you are back you pick a new time in the app. Tapping Cancel recurring lesson hold releases the slot right away.

Giving a lesson to a friend

If you cancel inside 24 hours the lesson is already paid for, so the app lets you hand it to a friend instead of losing it. Nothing is refunded and the price does not change. Your friend claims it through the link we send and tells us who is coming. If the guest is under 18, we need a parent or guardian to claim it, bring them in, and give us a number we can reach during the lesson, and we will ask for that before the lesson runs. This is a gift from you. We still do not run trial lessons.

Referrals

Refer a friend from the app (a typed invite or your share link). When that friend takes their first lesson with us, your next lesson is free. Every third friend who takes a first lesson earns you one more free lesson on top, so three referrals means four free lessons.

A few rules so it stays fair:

• The friend has to be brand new to Rising Stars. Someone already in our system, whether a current or former student or someone who has already been in touch with us about lessons, does not count. If you send a typed invite, the app tells you right away when someone is already in our system. If they come through your share link instead, we check when they book and email you either way.
• When you send an invite, you are telling us your friend is happy to hear from us. We send them one email, and one text if you told us that is okay. Nothing after that unless they get in touch.
• You can have up to ten invites out at once. Once one of them books, you can send more.
• A free lesson is applied in the app as a $0 price on your next booked lesson. If nothing is booked yet, it waits and lands on the next lesson you book.
• If a free lesson is already sitting on your account when you earn another one, we apply the new one after it. Sometimes we do that by hand, and we email you either way.
• If you already have a special rate on your account, we apply the free lesson by hand and email you.
• If the lesson your free lesson landed on gets cancelled, or it had already been charged by the time the reward came through, email us and we will move it to your next lesson.
• Free lessons cannot be exchanged for cash and cannot be given to someone else. We may change or end the referral program at any time; rewards already earned are honored.

Accounts and students under 18

• Every student under 18 is enrolled by an adult, usually a parent or legal guardian. If a parent has asked you to book for their child (a grandparent, a nanny), you confirm the parent knows about these terms and has agreed to them. Whoever enrolls the student holds the account, keeps the card on file, and is responsible for the bookings and the charges. A student under 18 cannot open the account or put a card on file. If they have their own login, the adult on the account is still responsible for the bookings and the charges. If you are 18 or older and booking for yourself, these terms apply to you directly.
• Keep your account details accurate and your password to yourself. You are responsible for what happens under your login.
• We may close an account that is used to abuse the school, our staff, or the app.

Drop-off, pick-up, and supervision

We look after your student during their lesson. We are a music school, not childcare, so outside the lesson a parent or guardian is responsible for them, in the waiting area and at events. That does not change our own job of keeping the studio safe for everyone in it. Bring your student to the studio at lesson time and be back before the lesson ends. A showcase at an outside venue follows that venue's rules as well as ours. For our youngest students we may ask a parent or guardian to stay in the building during the lesson. For an in-home lesson, a parent or guardian stays in the home for the whole lesson.

We release a student under 18 to the parent or guardian on the account, or to another adult you have listed under Guardians / emergency contacts on the student's profile or told us about in writing. A student under 18 leaves on their own only if the parent or guardian on the account has told us in writing that they may, and we keep that on their profile. An adult student comes and goes as they please. If no one has come for a student after a lesson, we will call the numbers on the account.

If a student is hurt or unwell and we cannot reach you, you agree that we may call 911 or get them emergency care. You are responsible for the cost of that care, unless the injury was caused by something we did wrong. Tell us about allergies or medical conditions a teacher should know about, and keep your phone number and your emergency contacts current in the app.

Your content and ours

• Anything you put into the app (practice journal entries, messages, files you upload, photos) stays yours. You give us permission to store it and show it back to you, your teacher, and the school so we can run your lessons.
• Lesson notes, curriculum, recordings we make, and the app itself belong to Rising Stars. They are for your lessons, not for resale or redistribution.
• We take photos and video at showcases and events, and a teacher may take a photo or a short clip during a lesson. We share some of these on our Instagram, our website, in our ads, and in our newsletter, usually the student's first name and a clip of them playing. By accepting these terms you are giving us your written permission to do that. If you would rather we did not post your student, email sean@risingstars-musicschool.com or tell your teacher, and we will not. You can change your mind at any time the same way: we stop making new posts with your student right away and take down what we can within 14 days. A showcase is a public performance, and other families take their own photos there.
• Do not upload anything you do not have the right to share, or anything hateful, harassing, or unlawful.

Being here

Treat teachers, staff, other students, and the space with respect. We may end a lesson, or the relationship, over unsafe or abusive behavior. You are responsible for your own instruments and belongings while at the school.

Texts and email

By text we send lesson reminders, tour confirmations and reminders, and the occasional check-in after a first lesson or a missed one. By email we send booking confirmations, a receipt for every charge, and a monthly newsletter. Reply STOP to any text to stop texts. Message and data rates may apply. Every newsletter and referral invite has a way to unsubscribe at the bottom, or email us and we will take you off the list. Receipts, booking confirmations, and lesson emails keep coming while you have lessons with us. How we handle your information is in our Privacy Policy.

What we do not promise

We work hard to teach well and treat you fairly. We do not promise a particular result or pace of progress.

The app is provided as is. We do our best to keep it running, but it will have the occasional hiccup. If the app is down when you need to make a change, email or text us right away.

If we owe you money over a booking, a charge, a lesson, or the app, the most we will pay is what you paid us in the three months before the problem. We are not responsible for indirect losses like missed work or travel costs. This limit never applies to giving back a charge we made by mistake.

That limit also does not apply to injury or death caused by our negligence, to anything we do on purpose or with gross negligence, or to anything New York law does not let us limit. This limit does not apply to a claim under New York's consumer protection laws (General Business Law sections 349 and 350), and it never caps damages or attorney's fees that a statute says you can recover. It does not limit the claims of a student under 18. Nothing in these terms takes away rights you have as a consumer under New York law.

If we disagree

Talk to us first. Before either of us starts anything formal, we tell the other side in writing what the problem is and what would fix it. You email sean@risingstars-musicschool.com with your name, the email on your account, and a short description of the problem and what you are asking for. We write to the email on your account. Then we have 30 days to work it out together. Almost everything gets solved here. We will not count those 30 days against any deadline you have for bringing a claim.

If that does not work. A claim goes to the state courts in Queens County, New York, or the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York, and you and we both agree to those courts. New York law governs these terms, without regard to its conflict of law rules. For a small amount you can use small claims court instead, which is faster and cheaper. A company cannot file in small claims in New York, so on our side that would be the commercial claims part of the same court.

Who this covers. "You" means the person who holds the account. If you book for a child, you agree for yourself and, as far as New York law allows, for the child on anything about the account, the bookings, and the charges. A child's own claim for injury, abuse, or harm to their health or safety is not covered by this section and is not yours to give up.

A few last things. Nothing here takes away a right the law says you cannot give up. If any part of this section is found unenforceable, the rest still applies. This section survives if your account closes or these terms end. If we change it, the change does not apply to a disagreement either of us has already raised in writing.

Changes

We may update these terms. For a small change (a typo, a clearer sentence) we will post the new version here with a new effective date. For a change that affects your money, your bookings, or how we resolve disagreements, we will email the address on your account at least 14 days before it takes effect, and we will ask you to accept the new version before your next booking. If you do not want the new terms, you can stop booking and close your account, and the version you accepted covers everything up to then. A change never applies to a disagreement that started before it took effect.

The fine print

• This page, our Privacy Policy, the prices shown in the app when you book, and any rate or referral reward we have confirmed to you in writing are the whole agreement between us. They replace anything said or written before.
• If a court finds one sentence here unenforceable, the rest still stands.
• If we let something slide once (say, we waive a late cancellation as a kindness), that is a one time thing. We can still apply these terms next time.
• You cannot hand your account or these terms to someone else. We can transfer them to a new owner or legal entity if the school is sold or reorganized, and we will let you know if that happens.
• Anything that by its nature should outlast your account (charges you still owe, who owns what, the limits on what we promise, and how we handle disagreements) keeps applying after your account closes.
• We send notices to the email on your account. Send notices to us at sean@risingstars-musicschool.com or to Rising Stars Music School, 18-84 Stanhope St, Ridgewood, NY 11385.
• Headings are there to help you find things and do not change the meaning. "Including" means "including but not limited to."