Route66 wrote:
> @ Nathan61
>
> have you ever negotiated a higher salary? or persuaded a school to move you
> up the pay scale?

My experience is that directors often have room to place teachers on a higher step then they would technically get. This seems to be a way to compensate for things like really good experience in non-accredited teaching situations, professional experience in your field, publishing of educational materials etc.

Outright negotiating would be pretty brash, but there are more subtle ways to suggest that salary is an issue and perhaps you feel you deserve a higher step. Sure could sound make you sound greedy if it came out wrong though!

fine dude...

Many excellent and fully accredited, embassy affiliated, board governed schools have room to wiggle around on the salary scale. This is pretty common practice, but it depends on the school.

What subjects do you teach? Specialists in hard to find areas are certainly more likely to be contacted before the fair. If you are both elementary teachers then your chances of being contacted before the fair are probably pretty slim unless you look exceptional on paper.

Are you registered with Search Associates? I know a lot of administrators put lots of stock in confidential references on Search. Remember in the early hiring season schools are very picky, and you are up against people who have confidential references from several international schools.

I wouldn't worry too much because most jobs still are given out during the fair season. A lot more jobs will open up too. My current school has not even posted the jobs because we have until December 10th to decide if we will return.

It probably also depends on what subject you teach. I am a music teacher who has also been doing some non music related stuff such as drama productions, putting on a school wide talent show, and working as assistant MUN director. During three interviews in the past month nobody seemed remotely interested in this stuff. These extras couldn't hurt, but really all they seemed intereste in was what I would be doing for the music department

Dredge wrote:
> My only point is that the original author sounds like one of the parents at
> the schools. It sounds comical. I am seriously not trying to start an
> argument, just reiterating that 'dropping the kids off at daycare, making
> dinner, going grocery shopping, doing laundry', etc. is how most people
> raise and have a family. There is nothing to fear about it. The author
> sounded so exasperated at the thought of having to take care of his family
> besides putting a roof over their heads. It makes for good satire... and
> then the line about being 'able to afford AT LEAST one bilingual nanny.'
> This post should be sent to the author of white people problems.


You sound pretty jaded. I certainly don't want to raise my kids how "most people raise and have a family." Most people have no bank account, no medical care, and no financial security. The post was merely a discussion on the benefits of being able to hire quality care for your children and household help. So far we have been able to have our small children spend time doing varied activities with educated, multi-lingual people while we are at work. I certainly could not provide the same kind of care if I was teaching in a place like Washington DC or Paris. But.....the trade off is living in a developing country and not in a great city in Europe. So that is the reason for the discussion.

Hi Autumn,

What I am talking about is moving to a country where maybe you don't have a nanny, and you have to do everything yourself. Drop the kids off at daycare, cook, clean, laundry etc. I was just wondering if anyone had left all that household help behind to move to a place in Europe or the USA where it is unaffordable, and then felt like it wasn't worth it.

But....turns out we just landed a new job in a place where we should still be able to afford at least one bi-lingual nanny.

I agree with others that it is bad policy for Schrole to be asking for confidential references. At this point they really don't have a name for themselves and I am sure my past supervisors are going to be annoyed since they just did Search references for me.

We are in Antananarivo. It is cheap to hire a good nanny who speaks English and French. We've been here five years though and are looking for something bigger and more developed. Since we had our children while working here I have never been without a lot of child care.

My wife and I have two children under 3, and are interviewing for new jobs. Right now we have two full time nannies and a full time housekeeper. Are we crazy to leave this behind to move to a country where childcare is less available? I am wondering if anyone has made a move to a more first world type setting and regretted it. It is hard to gauge the importance of something like childcare until it is gone. Any words of wisdom?

It is really too bad if they are pushing these plans. My school had a company they worked with, but thankfully the former director sort of recommended we not use it. Probably much better off investing in index funds or anything with a lower expense ratio!

Thanks for all the input. I agree that SS could be really good. For me the trouble is that I only have about 4 quarters vested in it because I have been overseas since graduating from university. It doesn't seem like many schools are contributing, so the chances of getting 40 quarters in the system seem slim. The school is choosing to adopt it, and they could have told us before we signed on for another year, but they decided not to mention it. I don't know if I should moan about it to them or not, but it is a significant pay cut that we were not expecting.

I am currently teaching at the American School of Antananarivo, and the board of directors is talking about teachers paying a mandatory 7.5% of their salary into social security next year. I am a little sensitive about this because they just told us and it is May. We signed our contracts for next year having no idea about this new "benefit."

I have been teaching abroad for the last seven years and hardly have a penny in the social security system. For someone like me (who is saving plenty for retirement and doesn't plan on teaching in the USA) are social security payments really a benefit? It is my belief that most schools do not pay into the system, so my chances of racking up 10 years of social security payments are pretty slim.

Any thoughts will be much appreciated!

The contract is for December 10th, but for our new contract the director is changing it to December 1st.

Nobody is complaining, but if it is an important matter then we can at least make that clear.

You can find often find data online about the rate of intentional homicide in a country. Knowing that the murder rate is low certainly makes me feel safer.

I never would have considered moving to Madagascar, but when I looked into it I found out the country is surprisingly safe.

If you don't have a commute to school that makes a huge difference. I think I am safer here is Madagascar than I was in Dubai because I don't have a commute here, and when I do drive the traffic moves pretty slowly.

Our director wants to change our date of resignation from December 10th to December 1st.

How big a deal is this?

Maybe I am overly sensitive, but I think it is a significant advantage for those of us who teach very specialized subjects to have a later resignation date. I teach band, and sometimes there are not a lot of openings that fit both my wife and I. With a later resignation date we can look for jobs, and if there is very little available we can opt to stay at our current post.

Any thoughts?