I currently live in Tokyo with a wife and one year old. My salary is almost the same, maybe just a touch less, and my wife is getting a small benefit from her work because of maternity leave. The point is our salaries are probably similar.

You may also want to ask about health insurance and pension. In Japan everyone has to join the health insurance system and the pension system. These can be pretty big expenses, so you may want to find out how much that will cost each month for you and your wife (although if you wife is not working full time maybe her payment will be less. I am not sure, so maybe ask). Maybe ask what the take-home amount after taxes, insurance, and pension will be. I think my take home is about 450,000 after all of that. Again, maybe yours is less if your wife has to have some deductions too.

So, if you are taking home 450,000, I think you can definitely make do on this salary. As others said, you may not be able to save a ton, but I think you can be fine (although I only have a baby, so I don't know how expensive two kids are! Maybe a lot more??). We pay about 170,000 in rent, but we chose to live in a brand new apartment building in a fairly expensive neighborhood. I don't know for sure, but I bet you could pay 130,000 or so if you chose just slightly further away and an older building (although you need more space than me. Check this site to search for apartments to see the cost - this link goes to the page where you can search along a train line. Use Google Chrome and it will translate automatically - https://suumo.jp/chintai/tokyo/ensen/). You have a transportation allowance, so if you have to take a train a little bit, it's no problem. Also, depending on where you are you might just be able to bike.

That would still leave you 300,000 or so. The next biggest expense is food. I think shopping at the grocery store is much more expensive in Japan than the US (every thing is in tiny packages!). But again, looks like you still have enough money to play with.

Also, just imagine, maybe you can tutor one day a week, or your wife can do the same if she is working part-time. That would add a little cushion.

Point is, not the highest salary in the world, and housing allowance would be nice, but actually, there are only a few high-paying schools in Tokyo. Mostly the salaries are around where you are. If you like the school and are able to live a normal/slightly frugal lifestyle you will probably be ok.

Oh, last thing, when you move into an apartment in Japan, there are a LOT of expenses, so be prepared for that. You have to pay first month's rent, security deposit, and often you have to pay "key money" and/or an agent's fee. While you can get the security deposit back, you can't get the other's back. You may end up paying 500,000 just to move in, so have a plan for how you will get that money, or speak to the school if they offer interest-free loans.

I got my master's in ed leadership through the College of New Jersey. They have a few global campuses during the summer. I went to the one in Mallorca. My program took four summers I think, but the good thing is you don't have to do anything during the school year, except for the final year when there was a leadership internship. I don't know about the other programs, but this one was manageable. But it did take four summers, so if you want to complete it more quickly, you would have to take a year off I think. Also, there are a lot of international school teachers, so it's great to make connections with people as well.

https://offsitegrad.tcnj.edu/

Curious to hear anyone's thoughts from the ISS Job Fair that happened from October 15-16. Personally I was pretty disappointed. The "interview sign-up" was basically just posting your bio into a public chat room. You could also try to personally send a message to a school rep, but only if they were logged in at the time. During the first day sign-up, I saw 17 schools logged on. The second day it was 10. Interactions between schools and candidates seemed limited. I would be very curious to hear from anyone who had any success getting an interview or offer.

The American School in Japan posts their starting salary on their webpage, but this appears to have gone down by about $20,000 over the past couple of years. Any idea what has happened? Are faculty on two different scales (newer hires versus those who were hired before the decrease)?