Although it was a while ago, I seem to remember our housing in KSA was determined by country law which forbid the employer from providing housing that put boys and girls in the same bedroom, which does make sense considering the context. The rumor that is worrying you is likely just that. As for your enquiry regarding what other schools do; our family had 3 bedrooms in KSA (boy and girl children), 4 bedrooms in African country, 3-4 in other Asian countries.

Having IB experience widens your pool of possibilities considerably. Having AP experience more than prepares you for the rigor of the courses, but training and experience are evidence you are skilled at the IB assessments. There are many schools (all tiers) who will hire good people without IB experience and pay for you to go to training, so it's a good route to go if you plan to stay overseas.

Documents like this generally have to be authenticated; if that's the case, faking it would not be a good option.

Hopefully your AP experience only will not be a hindrance. Good administrators will hire good teachers when they find them, as they know that adjusting to IB in grades 11 and 12 is simply that - an adjustment. IB Lang & Lit is changing its assessments in a couple years anyway, so every teacher who teaches it will have to go to new training, not just newbies.
Your philosophy degree should be a strong asset to anyone valuing critical thinking skills; maybe take an online course introducing you to the IB's Theory of Knowledge course - you'll find your skills as a philosophy student make you well suited to the thinking taught in that course - so now you have two positive attributes to offer schools: your experience with courses of rigor and your willingness to teach in either IB or AP. Good luck.

It can be difficult but not impossible. Countries that are experiencing tremendous growth in international schools - except for China, which it is my understanding cannot bend - can be willing.
I know schools in the UAE will hire teachers in their 60s although their initial ads might post a cut off age stating that they don't. Getting in under the age of 60, however, does make it easier for them to process your visa and perhaps impact their cost of insuring you as well.
Vietnam and Thailand will also hire teachers past 60. European countries may have laws preventing age discrimination, but you would still face the hiring administrator's particular bias - depends on that person and on yourself.
The inquiry letter for my current position started with the caveat something as follows, "Your ad states that your school has a cut off age of 60 for hiring, if that is a strict rule, read no further. However, if - as is the case in my current school - you do overlook age for qualified applicants..." It worked.
I have been or worked with teachers over 60 in Central America, Kenya, several ME countries, and Vietnam. Good luck.

You don't have to spend a lot of money to live in Dubai - there are plenty of free things to do, first and foremost is the beach. Seriously, check out a different beach area each week to find your favorite - so many options. You can check Timeout for weekly happenings; it seems there is always something going on. Market days in the winter are lovely events and you can spend a lot - eating at all the kiosks and buying crafts from artisans - or just go soak up the atmosphere for the cheap admission price ($2-3) to the park. There is a bike path you can take advantage of by jumping on at any number of places and, if you are so inclined, can stretch out for the entire 80 km roundtrip - it may have even gotten longer since we were there. Global Village is a cheap, interesting afternoon or evening during the 5 months or so it's active. Seriously, there is just always something to do and many different options depending on how much you want to spend. The Entertainer book is well worth it - check them out at Virgin to determine which one(s) will get you the most bang for your dirham.

In addition to Dubizzle, there are discount malls for saving money on items you need. Also, there are certain times of the year when all stores have major sales - if you know you want to buy something major and can wait, wait until then. We knew we wanted a new Nikon camera and got it during Dubai shopping festival at a discount mall for 1/3 the price of Best Buy. Well worth it, even though we hate shopping.

As for discount airlines, it depends on where you want to go. Flydubai is reasonable for destinations in the ME, some African cities, and also some European cities. Norwegian Air also had great fares to Europe if you were flexible and planned ahead. AirArabia has good fares but after one flight with them to Turkey, I would never use them again - maybe just a personal experience, but flying out of Sharjah - yikes. Turkey, Jordan, and Bahrain all had national airlines with slightly lower fares than Emirates, also. Emirates are awesome, by the way, and their top rating from TripAdvisor is well deserved - even for us economy dwellers.

I never wanted to live in Dubai, honestly, and yet really liked it for the 5 years I spent there. Had I been at a school I believed to be going in the right direction, I would be there still. Best of luck.

Thanks for the info on Seven Corners, will definitely keep that in mind should I have one of those awkward gaps of no insurance - had them as primary insurance for 5 years and had nothing but positives. Our son needed nose surgery that included rhinoplasty, and we paid $44 of a bill that was circa $25k. Ah, medical costs in the US..... The billing person at the surgery center - who had never heard of Seven Corners - also said she had never worked with any one so up front and responsive. So would definitely recommend them.

To the original question, while it's true that college and university in the US is ridiculously expensive and its possible to find schools in other countries - what if your child wants to go 'home' and be close to family? Hopefully you know that most, if not all, private colleges and universities in the US offer financial aid, often enough to put the costs in a more affordable range than public institutions.
Some exceptional schools are not only completely need blind but guarantee that students who earn admission will be able to attend regardless of financial situation. I had a student several years ago who had applied to Harvard just for bragging rights as he had no way to pay for it; he got in and they offered him so much aid he couldn't afford not to go - he paid 6k per year room, board and tuition (this was 7 years ago). I had another student admitted to a great liberal arts college in the midwest with the same policy - a school that cost around 50k per year - have her bill reduced to 2k. Good college counselors will know which schools have this policy, or an internet search will probably do.
While other private schools may not have the funds to guarantee the above, they recognize the need to attract students and offer aid. Our youngest son attends a good, well-established private liberal arts college that is about 50K per year full price. They first offered him 15K aid per year; he wrote and thanked them politely but said that wouldn't be enough as his parents were teachers so he would have to look elsewhere. They doubled it plus a bit, and he has maintained that aid now into his 4th year. This was all grants, btw, no loans - he also qualified for about 10k per year in loans, but we had him decline those as we could handle it. Some of it is earned money with a work/study job, one which pays him $15 per hour and teaches him valuable skills at the same time. This school ended up being less money for us than having him attend a small state public school. He was offered the same deal at another private school, similar costs, further away from home, but chose this one to be closer to relatives and save on travel. We have friends whose children also 'shopped' the best financial aid. It's okay to ask the schools for more than the initial offer - even if they say no, nothing lost.
Aid is based on your FAFSA report of taxable income. As overseas educators, we don't earn enough to have taxable income - I'm aware that some do, but not us. We have always been 100% honest with the school and all income forms; they know what our annual income is and they know we own a home in the US. Still, as that one category in the FAFSA is the main determinate for aid, our score of zero has through the years gotten our children aid well over $200k. That being said, it is true that their U.S. schools were still stupid expensive, and we paid far more than was reasonable even with aid. One child did look to Canada, but as a foreigner, it was not a better deal than the private school with aid he ended up attending and graduating from.

Contact your Search representative - they work for you, too. Make sure you have more than enough references, then ask your rep. to remove the least helpful letter as it would be superfluous anyway. (By checking which letters remain in your file, you'll know whose was removed and can avoid using that person's name as a reference in the future.) This would likely not work with your current head of school, though, as most prospective employers will want to make that contact as a routine part of the process.

If you are located in Europe, consider using CIS (http://www.cois.org) - as per law, they do not charge any fees at all and I believe co-sponsor one large fair per year with either ISS or Search

To get our current visas in a very strict country, we were simply required to submit a notarized name affidavit to cover any name discrepancies, including documents that might only list your middle initial rather than the entire name. You can find templates online, but you simply type up a statement attesting to all the variations of a name that you have gone by (you can have multiple variations on your one document), then get it notarized. If overseas, the US Embassy or a consulate will do this. You simply swear before the notary that what you are affirming is true, they check your ID (and perhaps in your case the paperwork you have regarding the name change) and that's it. So what seemed like a daunting requirement to us actually was quite easy to take care of - hopefully this will work for you as well; the Embassy official we encountered certainly was used to this type of document.

It's interesting to ask about the reasons the departing teachers gave for leaving, and the rate of attrition.
What is the interviewer's favorite thing about living in the country and least favorite?
What do they know now that they wish they had known prior to their arrival in the country?
What initiatives are the school pursuing and what are they considering adding?
How would the students at the school describe the education they are receiving and the teachers they have?
What does the school do to promote happiness among the students and the staff?
If I were to walk around your school right now, what would I find in terms of style of teaching going on? What does the collaboration between teachers look like - planned? haphazard? enthusiastic? begrudging?

We keep a lake home in Minnesota. Our children have a place to call home, our extended family has a place they can come visit us, and we have come to love it so much that we don't really travel in summers - just the trip home. Our children who attended state schools did qualify for in state tuition as well.

Not sure who would fall for this kind of scam, but here is a link to show that they do happen:
http://gulfnews.com/xpress/abu-dhabi/ne ... -1.1523051

Currently working in Dubai - most teachers (both at our school and at 3 others here in city of which I have personal knowledge) purchase cars through loans - quite a normal process. Tens of thousands of expats do the same - even our staff members like drivers, facilitators, etc., pool together and purchase cars using loans. Funny story about this. A teacher in his late 50s went in for a loan with everything proceeding quite normally, until it came time for loan terms. He was told he only qualified for a 2 year loan, as after that he would turn 60 and he "could die." Who could argue with logic like that? He conceded that he, like others, could in fact die and settled for a 2 year loan instead of the typical 5 year one.