It seems a pretty amorphous question.
I wonder if the OP is intending to be a recruited-hire teacher, as in, taking the lead in recruiting for a new position and her husband follows along wherever she gets the right post? Because that's typically the best way to get tuition paid by the school. But it's not usual for situation like the OP describes, where the non-teaching spouse is the higher earner. Usually the higher earner takes the lead and the teaching spouse follows along. Unless the OP's husband works from anywhere?

Rather helpful if people post the length of each instructional period.
We've been round this conversation many times. Normal is all over the place, starting with stark divides in expectations between British-style and US-style schools, and everything in between. And of course huge variations in how many different classes one needs to prep.

Ask the school for your passport back. Hopefully you’re right and the school hands it over. Ask your two friends to buy you the flight they offered. Leave.
That is your only real option.
I’ll repeat myself from earlier: if the school/owners wanted this fixed, it would already be fixed.
Also a repetition: even if they fixed it, you’d still be in a horrible position. Having a visa doesn’t make it better to work for shady con artists and get paid peanuts.
They have made it clear how much they care about you. For whatever reason, it suits them just fine to have you suffer and to keep you in a position where you could be arrested. Believe what they are showing you.
The embassy is not there to help you. They are there for political and business relationships. Citizen support is really limited. Get it out of your head that the embassy will rescue you. They can issue an emergency passport. Nothing more - they won’t even loan you the money to get out since you have family/friends who have indicated they will do so.
I don’t know whether you are faking all this, or simply unwilling so far to take the advice given, but I don’t see what else anyone can do for you until you decide to act.
Stop asking for advice. Take what you’ve been given. Sometimes medicine isn’t tasty.

There’s no way to leave at the airport without a passport. Once long ago I entered a third world country while the immigration department was on strike, so I didn’t show a passport to anyone, but I doubt you have the time to wait for that unlikely situation.

Don’t underestimate how bad this might get. A telling story: https://internationalschoolsreviewdiscu ... r-support/

You have a place to live, good. Why are you relying on money from relatives to eat? Is the school not paying you? The money situation is very confusing. Do you have money to leave if you get a passport? If so, apply for an emergency replacement and get out.

OP, you seem to have faith in the school that I simply can’t envision. If they (school, owners, makes no difference) wanted this sorted, it would already be sorted.

Even if magically they resolved it (they won’t), you’d be stuck in a school on the brink of disaster, working for unethical people who have already conned you out of your previous stable existence, out of a promised raise, and into a situation that could result in your arrest for immigration violations. Nothing suggests your life will improve if you stay hitched to these people.

Involving parents will make things worse. The school will be beyond angry and the parents already know the school is what it is. They don’t want your drama, they want quiet lives. The school would retaliate for losing face and you would suffer more.

You don’t have to wait for the visa in order to leave. If the school is holding your passport, or claiming that the government has it, go back to your embassy and have them issue an emergency passport because you “lost” yours.

Get out.

the concept is fine, but in practice many of these that I've seen do not truly deliver. If the content is not there, no shiny delivery will get the job done. If the delivery isn't shiny, it's just a mess.
The skinny: a good one is slightly more impressive than a traditional CV; barely enough to make a dent. A bad one is worse than a traditional CV, because it proves you believe your skills are good even though they aren't.

Salaries have been going down overall, and a ton of lesser schools have opened up in the ME in the last decade. I've seen HOS salaries as low as 50,000 euros. Wouldn't be much fun, I reckon, but getting the title and experience would be worth it for some I suppose.

How long is a piece of string.
Personally I have been recruiting long enough that I know a good applicant when one comes in, but I also know that it is easier to identify the best candidates when I'm looking at a bunch of CVs side by side. So I might act quickly for a stellar CV on its own, or I might wait to gather a pool if there are good ones but nothing stands out yet. Or it might be fall break, or a week with a string of back to back meetings, oe a bunch of Covid cases keeping me busy, so I never even get to look and see what's there. And some recruiters I know never touch applications until the deadline. Frankly I think they're nuts, but it's their call. Some lesser schools jump as fast as possible on any applicant because their only hope is to snatch people up before other schools get a chance.
Don't read much into the response time. Shorter is usually good, but not always. Longer is usually not great, but not always.

Very strange situation and I have similar questions to PG, which in itself is all the odd. Anyway

Get your ducks in a row to cut loose from the school. Whatever's going on, they apparently have neither the ability nor the resources to keep you afloat. Figure out how to get gainful employment asap, where you are or elsewhere. Stop looking for solutions that involve your current school stepping up in any way, shape or form. If you were hired through a recruitment agency, make sure to fill them in. Don't expect any help, but at least you might prevent the school from pulling this with the next applicant.

Embassies aren't likely to help. Generally, they do have programs to repatriate hapless travelers, but these come at a high cost, and all but the most desperate find other ways to repatriate themselves. More specifically, expect that if they do repatriate you, it is a loan, not a gift, and your passport will be rendered null and void until you repay that loan. Governments are not keen for travelers to go back abroad if they've already proven unable to support themselves when they do.

Don't bother posting on the paid site until you are at least out of the country. If the school can find out what you post in the open forum, they can find out about the paid one too. There's no screening of who is a member, just a fee, so it could be anyone.

Very sorry to hear it's come to this. Good luck going forward, and keep us posted.

Many consider retiring elsewhere, where you can qualify for free medical care or at least afford good insurance. Insurance that excludes care in the US is much more affordable than insurance that includes it.
Residency in the EU is a great option. Marriage is one route, but you can also buy your way into some EU countries by buying a flat as part of a residence scheme. Or work in an EU school towards the end of your career, and earn the right to permanent residency while earning a paycheck. Five years does the trick, if I remember correctly? Or is it 10? And can take you to full citizenship.
Other countries have paid residency schemes that allow access to cheap healthcare. Malaysia is a popular one with its My Second Home scheme.
All options much cheaper for health care than the US, and many also have cheaper costs of living overall, even in the EU (Cyprus, Greece, Spain, the Baltics, etc).

If you’re convinced Search isn’t involved, you get to use their database regardless of when you tell the school.
PG speaks of avoiding consequences, but what consequences are there to avoid? The responses you got have a consensus that there are no consequences. I’m the most negative voice here, and the worst I’ve got is that potentially down the line it might turn out that someone knows someone else and puts two and two together, probably resulting in a nothing sandwich with a side of awkward shoulder shrug.
So own your decision and tell the school. Then you and them can all move forward.

I'd avoid anything based in the EU, unless you have a good reason to choose them. The EU banking rules are strict and getting stricter. To accept transfers from other countries, you'll have to produce documentation proving where the funds came from. Such as your contract with your school, a letter from your school, possibly a letter from your local bank that they can verify the funds are coming straight from your employer, no other sources. Stuff like that. And you'll probably be asked for that every year, even if you stay at the same school. Get a bonus, or take on some contracting work? More paperwork needed before they'll accept the transfer.
Some of that depends on what country your transfers are coming from, but I've heard just this month from a colleague doing a one-off transfer of a few thousand euros between The Netherlands and Germany, and she had to supply lots of paperwork. If those two countries don't trust each other....

That's a little different but still hard to predict.
Search may never find out. That's one possibility.
On the other hand, they may, at which point they may or may not be annoyed enough to do anything. It's easy enough for them to put your name in the database with a tick in the column for "never take on as a candidate", and have that sit there until the day you need them, whenever that might be.
There are other possibilities, including that the school you're ditching them for will find out, and may decide to renege on their offer.
The international world is small. You never know who knows whom, how well, and what they share. I've had the most unexpected connections pop up while I'm just randomly doing my thing, and while in most cases that is a neutral thing, it has the capacity to create very positive or very negative outcomes.
Just found out last month that a teacher who walked out from one of my schools a few years ago has finally resurfaced, in a low quality school in a city most people wouldn't call desirable. Am I doing anything about it, like contacting that school? Nah. Why be vindictive. Life is short. He was turned away from Search at the time he left us. We had hired him through Search, and they checked with us when he tried to go job searching after leaving us. We told them that he'd broken contract, and after that they decided on their own that they wouldn't take him back as a candidate. Rather a shaggy dog story, that. Not sure it's relevant. But it popped into my mind.
If you really don't want to keep the contract you signed, try an honest conversation with the school. It often goes better than people think. They won't be thrilled, I won't lie, but they'll be happier if you talk with them honestly and give them as much notice as possible. What'll really annoy them is if you faff about and make up stories, and delay, and they figure out far too late that they need to go find another teacher.

Or am I misunderstanding? Did you accept the job and go work there, or just accept the job but don’t want to honor your word?

You might have a slightly different challenge, in that Search will require a recommendation from your most recent school. This means you have to put Search and the school you left into direct contact, and there’s no telling where that leads. Search will not activate your profile without a current contact, but they might decline to represent you if that contact reveals that you broke contract, regardless of whether it was a Search school. They can be understanding if the reason was truly new news (war in Ukraine) but tend to be less so about things like the pandemic- at this point, over two years in, it’s hard to convince someone that you left for a “new” pandemic reason.
Search can also, but doesn’t always, seek the school’s opinion on whether Search should rep the teacher if the teacher left under “interesting” circumstances. If the school doesn’t mind, Search won’t either.