Great information, thank you both!

My wife and I have always wanted to adopt, and now it's a couple years away. Does living overseas have any impact positive or negative on a couple's ability to do that?

Any personal experiences out there?

Thanks for the explanation. As my kids are only 3 and 2 at the moment, I'm less concerned with their education at this time since it's not all that likely that we'll be in one spot for 15 years (or even through their elementary years). I'm more thinking about mine and my wife's teaching licenses. Currently, we're both have just a provisional license in which we need a certain number of professional development points to move to the big boy license. Both of us still need a little in the way of Professional development in order to get there, so I just wasn't sure if the PD offered would count toward our state license. I realize this is something I need to inquire with my state's department of education about.

I was also thinking about the experience that I will be able to count toward "steps" on salary scales, etc. if/when we ever move back to the states. I had read somewhere else on the forum something along the lines that if a school doesn't have a WASC accreditation or something similar, our years might not be counted toward experience. Is that true?

Ok, really not looking to extend a debate topic or create a new one..

I'm an American with a provisional teaching license that will need renewed in a year. My wife and I have two kids that will be starting school in the next couple years. I'm looking to go back into international teaching, and after looking through a bunch of schools, the topic of accreditation has just now become a point of consideration for me. Right now, we're looking at two schools. Are there any negative implications for us with either of these accreditation, licensing, or counted experience-wise?

School 1: Accredited by CIS and NEASC
School 2: Accredited by Alberta Education, Canada (which to my knowledge is a curriculum, but the organization offers accreditation). It's accreditation is only for grade 10-12. Is that normal?

Does anyone have any knowledge of or experience with this school in Hong Kong?

I know what's listed on Search and what I can find on their website, which is that you need to be a Christian to work there, they use the Alberta (Canada) curriculum, and that they are expanding into a bigger campus. I'm looking more for the "are teachers there happy?" sort of information. There are no reviews on ISR.

Thanks to any who can help!

You're not the only ones. My wife and I are signed up for the Cambridge fair, but were hoping to land something great so that we didn't have to go. We turned down offers in Egypt, and had a good interview with a decent ME school, but I really want to go to the fair for the experience and the possibility of much better offers. It's gonna cost us nearly $1000 to go, though, which is tough for us at the present time. We haven't heard much from the 40 schools we've applied to, so we're in the starting to sweat stage.

Anyone? If you can connect me with someone who does have information, feel free to PM me...

QSI schools are listed as 1 year contracts on Search Associates.

I've read all of the reviews on the paid site about this school, but theyre mostly from a few years ago. Does anyone have any recent experience, especially with the primary?[/list]

I'm able to get into the PM message box and push send. I thought it was disabled altogether. Also they took off the chat room after a few people suggested allowing PMs. Is it enabled now?

TCIS is a good school. I believe they ran into some financial trouble when they built their new campus in recent years, which caused some relational strain and eventually a split from their sister school in Suwon. I know people who have been there for a number of years and enjoyed it.

We're elementary as well and have put ourselves out to over 40 schools with minimal return. We've had a few interviews and one offer that we turned down (I know, not feeling bad for myself), but we decided to hold out for the fair or as we can possibly get multiple offers and have some choice.

I have had two interviews so far where I only got them because I emailed the elementary principal directly. In those situations, the elementary principal did the hiring for the elementary, but the director was listed as the decision-maker on Search.

I try to find it on the school's website first, then google if necessary. I email the principal a week after applying.

That's something I've gone back and forth over... "Is this really going to matter in the end?" I just had an elementary principal that I interviewed with this morning tell me that one of the reasons he is interested is because I took the initiative to email him directly.