This isn't a function of the student owning their equipment or renting it, this is a function of their skill level prior to your AOW course. It is actually worse for the student who is going to rent equipment since the equipment will fit and work worse than new equipment they own. I don't see the reason why a person who invested in their own equipment be penalized and scared away just because they did that when it should be the other way around.
I don't turn people from other agencies or instructors away from my own version of the NAUI AOW course because they will have less skills than the students who took my entry level course. I add to the AOW I teach two session in the pool (6 hours) and two session in classroom for these student who need remedial work including my former students who took the OW course long time ago and haven't been diving for a while.
In my AOW course we do 10 - 12 dives at least in openwater, two pool sessions and 16 hours classroom time in addition to the NAUI eLearning program (NAUI now has a fantastic revised online training program for OW and AOW that is superior to anything I have seen from other agencies.)
Are you supposed to teach and help the students improve and enhance their skills in addition to learning new skills and acquiring new knowledge or simply penalize them for not being up to what you expect at the beginning of the course and send them home to fend for themselves on their own?
I take a different approach when dealing with students wanting to take my AOW course who have less than ideal skill and knowledge level, I help them get up to the level they need to be at to start the course by giving them time to do remedial work with me prior to the actual AOW course not send them home after telling them they need time out to learn things on their own giving a good chance for them to learn it wrong or not at the level that is expected of them. I even do remedial work for students who had considerable experience but it was not done at accepted standards or up to date knowledge, I don't' send anyone home, I make them stay and I do my job as an educator to help them do better and be at an up to date level.
Most of the time I don't have people willing to do more than a pool session or two and a weekend of diving. So I insist on a pool session for those I haven't had for Open Water and if necessary, a day of diving before the class to refine their basic skills. AOW is not the time to teach buoyancy and trim. I do that with my OW students from the beginning. The people that come to me for AOW do so because they have found out that the AOW card will give them access to sites where the risk is increased due to depth, current, vis, temp, etc. More than few found out after taking AOW through another instructor or agency that though they now had access as far as the op was concerned, they did not have the skills or knowledge to do the dives safely and enjoy them.
So I set my class up to give those new skills, including rescue skills, to them. I teach them emergency deco procedures using the Navy tables, extensive gas management, and the skills that will allow them to not only do the dives, but make an informed decision as to when they should step away.
This was after witnessing divers who had an AOW card, but skills that should have had them still in the pool, be allowed to dive the Spiegel Grove. Not only did they not enjoy the dive, but one only made it halfway down the mooring line and the other just touched the deck at 90 feet before they had to end the dive and sit on the boat. Their AOW instructor told them they would be fine. The op used the AOW card as proof they were ok to do the dive. They believed they would be led by the hand and were surprised to find out they wouldn't be.
I have entry requirements for the class because I am not going to remediate basic skills. That's not what they are paying for. They are paying for new skills and knowledge.
If the pool assessment shows they are lacking, we'll decide on a path to deal with that. It may be coming to the pool for another session or two. I'll only charge the pool use fee of $25. My time will be gratis if they are committed to the AOW class. Or we'll go to the quarry for a day and work on skills at no charge for my time. Then I'll often advise them to get a few more dives in. With me or on their own before the actual AOW class. Now having a more solid foundation we can refine the buoyancy and trim as part of all the other dive skills. Not as the primary focus of the class.
I expect those coming to my AOW class to be able to perform mask remove and replace, reg recovery, weight belt remove/replace/adjust, and do an air share and not change depth more than 2 feet plus or minus. By the end of the class, we'll get that down to a foot.
So we have basically the same approach. I just did not articulate it as well as I could have. My name is going to be on that AOW card as the instructor. They are a reflection of my skills, knowledge, morals, ethics, and ability to pass those on. I don't want an op saying someone I trained messed up on a dive on the Vandenberg due to poor training.
I saw those divers on the Grove I mentioned earlier get relegated to shallow reef dives after that episode.
Were it my boat, I'd be leery of anyone coming from that instructor/shop in the future.
