Have you had any dance experience before...ballroom or otherwise. If not (and even if so) you will be starting at the bottom of the ladder. Probably there will be several weeks after you are "hired" when you don't get a paycheck at all, you just have to be there for training. Then when you do start to teach you will be teaching introductory lessons which are discounted and most owners pay the staff a "discounted" rate as well.
Over all the general starting pay for a new teacher is around 8-10 bucks an hour. Those are hours you are actually TEACHING. You may be required to be there from 1pm-10pm, but only actually be teaching 6pm-9pm, so you get payed for three hours. Can you live on $30 a day for a while? This is a worst case scenario, but be prepared.
At best, the owner will offfer you a garaunteed salary for the first 6 months to a year. But even that...I wouldn't expect much more than $250 a week.
Dance teachers are POOR! POOR! POOR! when they start. It isn't until many years later when they have lots of experience and training (much of it payed for out of their own pocket) that they actually can make a decent living. I was teaching ten years when I quit and went independant from the studio. I left there making 15 bucks an hour plus 8%comminsion. I never topped $25,ooo gross a year. I taught my butt off. Now as an independant I make $50-$60 an hour, but that is 12 years later.
Lots of studios (unintentionally) prey off of young people with very little business sense. My parents used to yell at me all the time, not to stay all day, when I only got payed for three hours. Which it is actually ILLEGAL to require someone to be on the work permisis and not pay them for every moment spent there!!! But studios do all the time. Young people just don't know any better. Lots of studios also go through TONS of trainee teachers. The ones that have enough business sense leave, the ones that don't and are swept away in the fantasy of it all stay. Some stick it out and are poor and are ok with that. Others move on after awhile, frustrated at not getting anywhere financially.
Just my opinion...don't give up your day job right away. See if they will accept you part-time in the evenings. It is hard to get started that way because you are not "in the groove" with the whole studio, but you will be able to pay your bills until you are ready to make a full time commitment.
Perhaps you will be in better conditions, but this is pretty average. It is a wonder there are any teachers at all considering the conditions we have had to go through. But if you really love it you can find a way to make it work. Just don't expect much for a long time.
