tuition and fess benefit

[E.B. White]

Please help! I would like to know if your school pays the tuition and fees as a benefit to employees with children, or just the tuition. This is our first year here, and today (January 20) the cashier handed me a statement (dated December 22) that the equivalent of US $1,600 was to be taken out of my next check for my two children's registration fees.

As many of you understand, my wife and I are holding our breath waiting for our first post-holiday paychecks, so the timing could not be worse. But, we were never told we would be responsible for this! This is my fourth international school, and I have never heard of anything like this.

If you could let me know what goes on at your school, it would be greatly appreciated. I don't necessarily need to know about relatively minor fees because we probably pay those, too, but if you are at a school that charges relatively big for having kids, please let me know.

Thanks very much.

[ichiro]

deleted

[gengrant]

We have all tuition and registration fees paid by the school. We must pay for all materials and "external" school benefits - lunch, uniform, after school activities. These amount to about $500 USD per year. Then again, we're in China, where costs are much cheaper I suppose than in many other parts of the world.

This policy is not necessarily standard, as we worked for a QSI school where all tuition and fees were paid for by the school...including lunch. Of course, these policies change as well from year to year, so what is paid one year may not be the next. I echo what ichiro said about reading the contract and asking ahead of time. Another idea would be to ask if fees could be deducted over several paychecks rather than taking them all out of one. This would reduce the amount you pay each month and give you a little more salary.

Best wishes to you.

~Gengrant

[joseph30]

[JISAlum]

I've looked at ISKL in Malaysia. It's in the same conference as JIS and SAS. They still charge faculty $500 tuition per kid. Not a lot, when you consider it- but it does send a message. If on one hand you pronounce the pay package to be highly competitive, then nickel and dime a staff member- that doesn't make sense.

I'd just deduct the tuition from my salary when negotiating.

[E.B. White]

Thanks very much to all who have written. I would still appreciate hearing from more people.

I completely agree with asking up front at interviews - we ask a LOI of questions at interviews, and now we know to ask this one.

We do not know why it takes $800 to register a kid - except that such a fee is just a way to make a little more money...and nickel and dime us. I have checked every document I have, and all state that tuition is covered - not tuition and fees - and, of course, there is no mention in any materials to new and propsective employees what any fees might be. While it would have been good to have asked, anyone reading this can picture a decent administrator saying, "Oh, by the way, note this doesn't cover fees, which total XXX," and then letting the propsective employee make a decision based on complete information.

Had we been told upono our arrival, we would have cleared the debt immediately, without this ridiculousness.

Finally, given the MANY other dysfunctions at our school, we can't be certain this wasn't instituted after our arrival. There are very few other teachers with kids here, but those we have asked never had to pay in previous years and are shocked by our news. This saga is not over yet - going back to the boss for further clarification and will keep you posted.

Will write more later - and looking forward to hearing more.

[johnwest]

Hey, E.B. White, good luck and take care. This is the type of situation--[i]relatively[/i] minor yet maddening--that can sour a teacher on a school very quickly. I hope it works out well for you.

[shansar]

EB-
Without saying what school you are at is it by chance managed by ISS?
Similar stuff happened here and we are still trying to sort out the details. Here they don't actually charge you for tuition but they are now saying it is a benefit and we are going to be taxed on it. This was NEVER mentioned before. It will cost us as we have 3 children and it will put us over the amount. Not happy about it.
Good luck to you and please let us know how it goes.
Hang in there.

[E.B. White]

We are not at a school managed by ISS. It is Wednesday evening here, which means the start of the weekend - thank goodness! We need a weekend to clear our heads and map out how to proceed with this issue. We quickly went from a plan of staying for four years to get one child through high school, down to two years, and now we are wondering if one year will be pushing it. I am 51; this is my 22nd year of teaching, and my eigth year in international schools and it is hard to imagine feeling more like a lowly pawn.

Thanks to everyone for their positive feedback and wishes.

[johnwest]

Sounds like you are in a certain large ME country. Can you tell us which city? Just concerned it may be where I am headed this fall!

[E.B. White]

I notice I have neglected to update the information about myself on the left margin - now in Jeddah. If that is a match, let's figure out a way to talk.

[johnwest]

I just realized that I can enable my email address. Go ahead, click that button! The city's right...

[scribe]

We have never had to pay fees for our children at international schools - nor did we at the school we were at in Jeddah, which was an airlines school at the time although that affilitation has changed. If you are at the school that claims its heritage from the airline school, I can tell you with confidence that NO FEES were ever charged teachers - and they paid tuition for all our children - one teacher had five and yes, they all went to school for free there. (we did pay a nominal fee for daycare for our infant daughter, the monthly fee was the same as a week would have cost in the US) Good luck.

[calciodirigore]

Although I am not dealing with this issue at the moment, I'm having to come to terms with the reality that what I was told at the NYC IRC and what my present school really is are two entirely different worlds. My director is an incredibly reasonable person but simply has not been able to deal with the monster that is afflicting my school. It seems too many disappointments are commonplace in international teaching…Ok – done ranting…The reason that I’m posting is that I recently had a child in December and even though I don’t plan on staying here for long I found out that due to local laws tuition is a taxable benefit in my host country. So, even though it would be technically covered by my contract, I would still have to pay roughly 600 Euros a month for my child’s tuition. This is not a point made clear upon signing the contract. If anyone is interested in European schools, it would be wise to check this out. I am aware that most countries in the EU don’t have this issue, but it wouldn’t hurt to check. Cheers.

[Chinuk]

I have had to pay for my 2 kids' "Activity Fee", uniforms and lunches. Also the annual school trip, which they are expected though no required to attend. All in, about $1200 per year per kid. If they took the school bus, I'd have to pay for that too. I am not taxed on the tuition as a benefit in this country, and have not included it in my declared world income for Canadian income tax because it never occurred to me to do so. I'd love to hear how others are handling it.

This has been very useful as I will be moving to another Asian country next year and hadn't thought to ask these questions. I will check the contract carefully.[/quote]