International Supply Teachers (teachersonthemove)

[SonnyCrockett]

I've seen this company mentioned a few times and wondered if anybody had any experiences with them?

I'm on the move this summer, but the wife and I have decided on a specific country (where she comes from) and although we are confident that something will come up (had two interviews already), we have been looking at a 'Plan B'.

My Plan B is to work from August-December somewhere that I can make some coin and then either try for schools in our chosen country again in the New Year, or just live on the money until the following summer when something will be available.

I'm a British teacher, so normally use sites like the TES and avoid the pay sites like Search or ISS, which seem more American oriented (I've also worked in IB schools). IST charge £35 to register, and I'm just wondering whether anybody has used them before and whether they felt it was worth it? The website looks very basic.

[PsyGuy]

Highly recommend them. Its a very basic website, since most of the work is little more than matching. They do, what they say they do, nothing less and little more. The major issues are 1) A significant number of their placements that offer anything close to an OSH package are hardship ISs, these are places and ISs ITs dont want to be. 2) Of the decent ISs the majority of vacancies are either end of term appointments (an IT left and their isnt anyone among the spouses, etc who can comfortably do the job, or cover (often maternity) for a few months to half a year. You have to redefine what an OSH package means to you.
Many of the ISs arent recognizable in IE. The other issue (a benefit you will have) is that many of these appointments have specific visa/passport/citizen requirements.

You may have better opportunities moving into ESOL than in supply/relief education. There are many more opportunities, jobs available, easier hours, minimal preparation and production tasking, and decent money.

[SonnyCrockett]

Thanks for the advice PsyGuy.

[Rob]

I am with "Teacherson the move" currently. You have to undergo an interview, and in my case it involved the director of IST interviewing me in person. They do checks on your recommendations, and it's actually pretty thorough. They want to take all the uncertainty from the school about a teacher's competence.

I have gotten a number of opportunities to work in schools they needed a teacher for , and unfortunately (or fortunately), I always made myself available to direct hires from different schools. Not bad for a 69 year old teacher. I'd say it's very geared toward a teacher who is semi-retired.

[PsyGuy]

I agree with @rob regarding the semi-retired focus. The issue is that the package is closer to a LH than an OSH package and your appointments are for relatively short periods of time. If you are semi-retired, you likely have some kind of pension that provides you a living to offset the deficiencies in the package. IST provides you the opportunity to be more a tourist IT and travel without breaking the bank.

There are a significant number of career ITs and DTs who use IST to treat their travel bug, try out IT without making long term commitments. There are also a number of ITs that bounce from short term/cover appointment to appointment all year round, some focus on a particular region (such as the ME) and move through the same circles of ISs.

[MartElla]

Relating to Search, they do have many British schools there. Almost all the best British schools are on their database, with a few exceptions but not that many. For example, in SEA Asia the likes of British Jakarta School, British School Manila, Bangkok Patana, British School Vietnam and on and on are on there. Must be a few hundred. Besides, I don't know many American schools that would not consider British teachers at all unless they were affiliated with the local Embassy and cannot employ them (like AES Delhi, American School of Warsaw). American schools, on the whole, seem a bit more open to hiring Brits than vice versa. No reason not to apply to them.

Then again, it's $225 to join Search so it might not be worth it if you are focused on just one country. Might be more worthwhile to visit all their websites one by one.

http://www.searchassociates.com/Schools/Default.aspx

[PsyGuy]

@MartElla

That is grossly inaccurate, there is no requirement in either law, regulation or policy that would prohibit or bar a DOS AS from recruiting or hiring a British IT or any other nationality of IT. The DOS does not own or manage any overseas ASs, the closest you can get is Overseas Assisted Schools, and even in cases where a member of the DOS is on the board they dont have final authority on recruiting (they at most have a vote).

I do understand where @SonnyCrockett is coming from while there is representation from the elite BSs its not proportionate to the AS, and when you aggregate the BS members in the database to region its a couple ISs, and those ISs are widely known, you dont need SA or ISS to bookmark the employment pages of a couple BSs.

[marieh]

PsyGuy is completely right in regards to DOS Overseas Schools. They will definitely hire non-Americans, especially in hardship locations.

[MartElla]

Fair enough, I must have been misled.

EDIT - Hang on, wait a minute. I just checked...

So, what's this then - http://www.aswarsaw.org/about/employment/index.aspx - "we cannot hire any faculty member as an overseas hire with an EU passport."

So they can't hire Brits after all? Obviously, nobody was talking about being local hires. Hardly "grossly inaccurate" after all, then?

I might well be completely wrong about AES Delhi, that was just what I was told.

[PsyGuy]

@MartElla

No still grossly inaccurate.
This is an internal policy. The restriction has NOTHING to do with the DOS or the embassy. It has to do with the special tax status a handful of ISs enjoy. They CAN hire OSH EU/British ITs but they would then lose that highly beneficial tax status, such that its not worth it for them to do for a couple of ITs when they receive ample applicants. They CAN do it, but they WONT do it. The issue has nothing to do with any regulation/statute imposed by USC or the DOS.
They can however hire an EU passport holder as a local hire, and they do all the time, especially for non-instructional staff.

The only DOS restriction imposed on an IS comes from OFAC, and would only apply to regions such as NK, etc. (and getting better for Cuba, and worse for Venezuela).

[MartElla]

Psyguy - so, the "grossly inaccurate" all boils to my use of one word - cannot - which if it was "will not" would have been fine?

Same end result. No EU citizens as OSHs.

[PsyGuy]

@MartElla

No, its based on:

1) The difference of policy based 'wont' and regulatory prohibition 'cant'

2) Your claim that embassies (the DOS) prohibit certain ASs from hiring anyone. (the same ASW website you cited, specifically states that the cause is due to special tax provisions, that you neglected in your citation, and has nothing to do with DOS restrictions).

3) That this is a wide spread phenomenon and is actually just a very small group of ASs.

4) That your original response neglected to identify that in this one AS, the AS could still hire an EU passport holder as a local hire (again the same citation you referenced specifically states that the AS can hire common wealth nation members, this includes British subjects and citizens, though as a LH).

That is what makes your statement grossly inaccurate.

[expatscot]

@PsyGuy, @Martella:

There could actually be an EU legal issue which is preventing this. Under EU law, member states (and organisations within them) must treat all EU citizens identically to those within their own country, as a form of anti-discrimination. That means that if the school in Warsaw wants to pay its Polish teachers less than the US teachers, it would not be allowed to pay UK teachers a higher salary than their Polish staff.

[PsyGuy]

@expatscot

Its marginally a technical issue, the IS in this case has a standards salary scale that doesnt differentiate based on nationality. However, the OSH benefits (housing, relocation) have monetized cash value, which would differ between LH and OSH ITs, but the value of these benefits is exempt by the special tax provisions.

The EU regulations recognize costs and expenses in the course of ordinary business as separate from salary. The regulation requires members within the same group to be treated equally within the group, but doesnt limit or restrict different categories of employees based on 'real', valid differences. An IS would have to compensate in salary and monetized benefits for an British principal and and a Danish principal equally, but they dont have to pay a British principal and a French IT the same, because they are different categories of employees. The same is true of LH and OSH ITs they are different categories of employees with real differences in costs and expenses.

[MartElla]

PsyGuy wrote:
> @MartElla
>
> No, its based on:
>
> 1) The difference of policy based 'wont' and regulatory prohibition 'cant'
>
> 2) Your claim that embassies (the DOS) prohibit certain ASs from hiring
> anyone. (the same ASW website you cited, specifically states that the cause
> is due to special tax provisions, that you neglected in your citation, and
> has nothing to do with DOS restrictions).
>
> 3) That this is a wide spread phenomenon and is actually just a very small
> group of ASs.
>
> 4) That your original response neglected to identify that in this one AS,
> the AS could still hire an EU passport holder as a local hire (again the
> same citation you referenced specifically states that the AS can hire
> common wealth nation members, this includes British subjects and citizens,
> though as a LH).
>
> That is what makes your statement grossly inaccurate.

1. You say no to what I said in the very post you responded to, and then repeated it? Poor logic. O our of 1, not a great start.

2. Didn't say they "prohibited" them. It wasn't there in my original post. You seem to be mistaking correlation with causation. I didn't say why or why not the restrictions might be in place. 0 out of 2, n ot looking good so far.

3. Now we go from the illogical to the fantastical. Who said anything about a "wide spread phenomenon"? Where did I say it wasn't just a small group? 0 out of 3, your worst effort yet.

4. The clutching at straws argument. Oh great, a local hire! Awesome. That's what EVERYBODY talks about on here. In fact, why is this site frequented by international teachers? Surely we should all be looking for local hire packages. We all know it wasn't about local hires. In fact, it wasn't mentioned until I acknowledged that possibility. 0 out of 4.

Fine, I might have been wrong about why a few American schools prefer to hire Americans on expat packages, and I don't mind admitting to being wrong about the reasoning behind it on this very thread - I hold my hands - but I think you'll find somewhat faulty reasoning emanating from your good self.

No? If not, never mind then.