Does Black Bear Diner charge a tuition fee for optional training?

• 1. Provide additional training programs and courses to you, your general manager and other employees, which may be optional or mandatory. We reserve the right to charge a tuition fee for optional training programs. Mandatory training programs will be provided to you without tuition charge. You will be required to pay all travel and living expenses incurred by you and your employees while attending training. (Franchise Agreement, Section 8.5)

We may provide and, if so, require that you, your General Manager or other managerial employees attend and successfully complete ongoing training programs including refresher training, seminars, informational classes and/or meetings. Attendance at such training programs will be at your sole expense, as to travel and living expenses. We will not charge a tuition fee for attending any mandatory courses but may, in our discretion, charge a reasonable fee for any optional training.

If you hire a new General Manager after completing initial Training Program, we will provide training to your General Manager for an additional fee of $3,000. Any General Manager hired by you must attend and successfully complete the initial Training Program within 60 days of hire. We may, based on your or your General Manager's personal qualifications and experience, revise, modify or alter the initial training program.

All our training is on-the-job training. The following is a schedule of the initial training program that we currently provide:

We conduct an initial training program which you and your general manager, if applicable, and assistant manager(s) must attend and complete to our satisfaction prior to beginning operation of the Franchised Restaurant. Under certain circumstances, for example, you are currently a multiunit operator or your personnel have been previously trained by us, and you receive our preapproval then we may waive the initial training program or certain aspects of it. The instructional material for initial training program is primarily on-the-job and conducted over approximately 8 weeks and is for approximately 320 hours as described in the chart below. We supplement on-the-job training with approximately 15-30 hours of classroom and interactive, online training modules which we refer to as "Bears in the Know." Except for the Grand Opening Module which is conducted over 14 consecutive days, training is typically conducted on Wednesday through Sunday as described in the chart below. We provide training at one or more of our company owned Black Bear Diner restaurants which we determine. In the future, we may certify certain franchisee-owned Black Bear Diner restaurants that meet our requirements as "Training Restaurant(s)."

Source: Item 11 — Franchisor's Assistance, Advertising, Computer Systems, and Training (FDD pages 28–35)