From my experience the school pays insurance coverage for all, including my university aged kids.

rabbit

We had a Dipont librarian visit our library a month or so ago. Admittedly she didn't work in Nanjing but the conditions she described made me squirm. They had 75 books in their library, which was the size of a small classroom. There was really no technology to speak of, in light of having only 75 books I can 't say I'm surprised. Support from the Chinese school was scant and while the students in Grade 10 were well behaved for the most part their academic achievement was hindered by their lack of English and they are supposed to be entering the IB Diploma program next year.

I would be very cautious if I were offered a Dipont contract.

If one of your choices is SAS I would advise you to ask what division you are being considered for. If it is Puxi ES then I would think long and hard about the choice because you will be moving into a toxic work environment. If it is for one of the other divisions either in Puxi or Pudong then it would be a good move.

There is a lot to like about both Shanghai and Beijing, as long as you like big cities.

Good Luck

Remembering the good'ole days; family of 5, including 3 under 9 years old, traveling with 12 seventy pound bags with a 3 day stopover at LAX. My back aches just thinking about it.

4+% here in our little corner of China plus a bump in housing

So you have a lunch duty once every four to five weeks, not the three to four times a week that SAS Puxi ES have it. Walk a mile and then come back and talk to me.

Supervision responsibilities vary widely from school to school, and sometimes even from campus to campus within a school. Shanghai American School's elementary schools have vast different supervision schedules, with Pudong ES teachers having very few duties to Puxi ES teachers being on supervision almost constantly and having 10 minute lunch periods. Apparently teachers are expected to interact with the students while on duty, going to the bathroom and eating a healthy lunch take a backseat.

I've worked at schools where the retirement was disguised as a "yearend " bonus, another where we received 7% of our yearly salary to be invested with a specific plan, and yet another where we got 10% of our yearly salary in cash.

At our large high school we teach 5 out of 8 classes in a two day rotation schedule. At the elementary school they get 90 minutes a day, which on paper looks fabulous, but once you take into account all the duties, team meetings and committees the teachers have to be on the time is really insignificant.

Can you bring electronic copies? Otherwise I would bring what you would consider essential and then work from there. Your school will make a huge difference. I have been at some where resources are scarce and others where there is a plethora of resources and I didn't need to bring any. If your school has given you teacher contacts then ask.

Shanghai is noticeably more polluted than in previous years, with the API hitting 500 twice this spring. It's eye watering and chest tightening.

We have just rented a 3 bedroom apt in Hongqiao for 9500 rmb/month. While looking we saw more expensive as well as cheaper apts of varying quality. The cost of living is certainly going up in Shanghai but you can still get by on the cheap if you want to

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