I follow the directions on the school's website. Unless they specifically say not to send materials to other people, I always send to the divisional principal.

I follow the directions the school lays out. I also send the information to the divisional principal, unless the school site specifically says not to.

In the US, you have to get a license and each state has it's own licensing arrangements. A lot of states will give you a certain amount of time to be compliant so you might be able to get a provisional until you are able to be state licensed. That's for public schools...private schools can hire teachers without the same conditions.

Schools in the US will be often quite concerned with their state standards, the Common Core, etc. and would want to know you can deliver. If you don't know the "lingo" and how you could meet their needs, that might be a challenge. There are, however, a number of private schools in the US that run the UK curriculum. There's one in Houston, Tx...you might want to search for schools that use the UK curriculum and see if you can get something going in that direction.

All the schools I've worked at have had one year renewal period. My former Saudi school offered 2 or 3 year renewal contracts with bonuses for those that signed because of the challenges of recruiting staff to Saudi. All other schools have had a 2 year initial and a year by year renewal.

Look at organizations like EARCOS, NESA, and AISA...they host PD and I think you can go even if your school is not a member, but you'll pay more. Some bigger (tier 1-type) schools have well-resourced PD offices--if you know someone that works at a school like that, ask them what's being promoted through their school.

If you know the specific presenter, you can google their schedule--I did that with Carol Tomlinson for differentiation and ended up at a great 2 day workshop in Chiang Mai.

Another way is to look for PD in specific cities like Singapore, Bangkok, Hong Kong, Dubai...cities that host a lot of PD and tend to be centers in those areas. Look at specific topics like "writer's workshop PD in Hong Kong" and see what happens. At some point in my career I stopped just going to PD and started looking for specific people and courses that targeted needs in my professional development or needs that I was facing in the position I was in at that time.

Good luck!

I don't think it's a dealbreaker to ask about pets unless you make it so. If you say you have them and wont leave them behind, the school won't care unless they provide housing that doesn't allow pets, or tell you that the customs, culture, whatever, of the country would make it difficult to get housing. You can ask about having a pet after you get there, what is the attitude towards pets, have other teachers imported pets, you may want to but you may leave them with family....it's not a big deal to ask.

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I worked for K12 in Minnesota about 12 years ago when it was just getting started. I was the special ed. coordinator for the Twin Cities, so that did mean that I went to a few houses and provided direct services for some very needy students. Others I did via webcam. In Minnesota there was a face-to-face requirement (although that may have changed) and you had to commit to a certain number of field trips/outings that were scheduled by the school in order for teachers to get to know the students. The instructional contact between teachers and students was all done by phone and webcam. I don't think it's the beginning of the end of teaching as we know it, but it is a shift in how we see education being done. My nephews all did K12 in Idaho and their setup and requirements there were different from ours, so I think it can vary state by state.

Yes, a special ed. degree overseas is marketable, but it looks very different to anything in the US and positions vary wildly in terms of quality, support, and implementation. Generally, a well-organized, higher-tiered school with a solid focus and vision for its teachers and students would have a better learning support program. You have to be very good at asking the right questions to make sure you have a good understanding of the school, the admin support, and what's going on there.

I think my job search has been enhanced by my MA in special education, but a higher degree wouldn't net me a job easier. In interviews, schools are looking for what you can do...develop a remedial reading program, do assessments, have experience with ASD or ADHD, work with EAL, provide backup counseling, working with teachers on differentiation, demonstrate skills with reading and writing workshop, etc. I've been asked to do all those things, and asked about them in job interviews. Most of that experience has come on the job and by being selective about the PD I do so that I have acquired critical skills. Because learning support overseas doesn't have the structure or federal mandates that countries like the US do, it can become a catchall for anyone who's not making the grade for any reason, so being able to do a lot, or learn about something and create a plan and move forward quickly, is an essential skill.

All the camps that are listed have schools.

The camps are Dhahran, Abqaiq, Ras Tanura, and Udhailiyah. The biggest one that everyone tends to think of when they think of Aramco is the Dhahran camp. Abqaiq is south about 1-2 hours depending on traffic, Ras Tanura is about the same to the north and on the ocean so it has a beach. Udhailiyah is also north, but not sure how far out of town it is. Not all Aramco employees live on these camps.

Best thing about living overseas--so many people come and go that it's much easier to settle in to a new school often than it would be in your home country. As the parent of 3 teens, I've found that it helps to try to have a good match between the teen and their interests. In China, 1 of our teens really struggled with the high-test atmosphere but grew tremendously in the activities and sports. Here in Saudi, both of them have severely chafed against the lack of social opportunities and limited sports and activities and it was very hard for them.

It also matters if you as a family are settled and content. When our children have struggled the most was when we were under stress and and out of balance.

We have loved having our teens overseas--it brings its own set of challenges, but it's been so great!

I don't think anyone can answer that easily--so really depends on the country you live in, personal circumstances, when you started saving, etc. As an American, looking ahead, the answer is "as much as possible." We've tried to live on 1 salary since we've been overseas. 20 years as public school teachers with 3 children meant that we didn't have much extra to put away. The best thing that we did, though, was start as soon as we got married in our early 20s. Now, even though it wasn't very much at the time and we've been hit hard twice by the crash and recession, it has made a big difference. The money that we've been saving overseas has made up for a lot and will come in handy now that we're in the college years, but we couldn't have made it up if we hadn't started small and early.

Do as much as you can when you can--backward planning helps. We found a counsellor that helped us figure out how much we would need in order to meet our future goals and then worked as hard as we could to get as close as we could to those goals.

Lehigh University in PA offers a full online counselling program geared for international teachers. I have 2 friends who have gone through it and thought it was a good program.

After reading the posts, I did remember that our school did, in fact, pay Chinese taxes on our behalf so it didn't come out of our salary...except for the recently issues social security type tax which we did have to pay out of our pockets. I think Psy Guy's right...the big schools are more likely to be the ones that cover it for you, so you should ask carefully. We're moving to a country where we'll have to pay a hefty national tax and it will definitely force us to be much more careful about our spending than we've had to be in the past!