Flight for Non-Accompanying Spouse

justlooking
Posts: 118
Joined: Sat Feb 14, 2009 1:02 am

Flight for Non-Accompanying Spouse

Post by justlooking »

Hello. My husband was offered a teaching/coordinating job in the middle east. He doesn't have details about the package yet, but when he sees them, we want to know what we should be looking for in terms of the family. Our children are college age, so I'll stay at my job in the U.S. until they graduate. I'd like to able to visit him during the school year though so we want to know if we'd have a leg to stand on if we insist that I should get flight money too. Certainly they'd be paying for my flights if I was an accompanying spouse.

By the way, we have 20+ years experience each including lots of IB, experience in the region, advanced degrees, great recs, etc. I'm pretty sure the school will be interested in employing me in a couple of years if things work out with hubby. Just saying that to add info in case you think they'd be inclined to offer me flight money since they may want to keep me in the mix for the future.

Would love to know your advice, especially if you have experience with a similar situation.
expatscot
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Re: Flight for Non-Accompanying Spouse

Post by expatscot »

Unlikely. He'll be hired on the basis of being a single person, so with a smaller housing allowance, healthcare package and flight allowance than even a teaching couple with a non-working spouse. What I would be looking to do is make sure that his overall salary will allow for this and try to pursue it that way.
PsyGuy
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Location: Northern Europe

Response

Post by PsyGuy »

Not happening. Unless the IS already has a policy or a benefit like that already established. Otherwise its an IT asking for a new benefit, and these things rarely stay quite. Its too much of an issue when it gets around that someone has this special benefit that amounts to an IT getting a bonus vacay/holiday flight. You have three potential options to get around this.

1) Structure the comp package for the benefits as allowances, and its possible you will have enough leftover coin to pay for your flight as a reimbursable expense. Make sure you get this from your ISs HOS in writing that this is acceptable.

2) During contract negotiation youre spouse could negotiate for a few more steps or a higher band in salary that would equal the flight cost. Since they have some TLR (coordinating tasks) theres likely more room to squeeze out some more coin compared to a FTE classroom appointment.

3) Change to a trailing spouse, and just dont arrive with your spouse. Combined with a strategy above, you should be able to fly in at the first winter break on the ISs dime and if you budget around the housing and other allowances you may be able to pay the return flight back.
This assumes that the IS has an annual flight benefit already established. If the flight benefit is only beginning and end of contract than you will have to self fund an annual vacay/holiday flights/travel yourselves, then you will need to use one of the other strategies.
Heliotrope
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Re: Flight for Non-Accompanying Spouse

Post by Heliotrope »

You can negotiate benefits that have a direct coin equivalency. If you as a consumer can put a coin value on it, you can negotiate it. Benefits like flights, tuition places, allowances, those are all negotiable.
However, it'll be a lot easier for the school to allow it if it doesn't create animosity amongst the rest of the staff. If I were you I'd travel with your spouse at the start as an accompanying spouse, and then fly back home but retain your status as an accompanying spouse, with the benefits that come with it.
I've seen accompanying spouse fly back home for a variety of reasons (often parents that need help, but not exclusively), some for a few months, others for a year or even beyond that and retain that status.
So while everything is negotiable and they might even agree to it if they really want your husband (and you in a few year), they might also say no, citing the rules. Being an accompanying spouse that travels back home for an undetermined amount of time will make it a lot easier since you're not creating an exception.
sid
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Re: Flight for Non-Accompanying Spouse

Post by sid »

Just because you want it doesn’t mean they’ll give it. And it’s no argument to point out what you would get if the situation were different. It’s not different. It is what it is.
Please don’t try to pretend that you will be an accompanying spouse to get more benefits. Schools don’t like feeling taken advantage of, and when they realize you aren’t accompanying, and that benefits were taken on false grounds, that’s cause for termination. I’ve seen it happen.
You can try to negotiate, but don’t expect much. Or anything. If you get it, great. Cheers to you.
Perhaps best to accept that he is entitled to single status, and possibly even got an offer with a better school because of it.
Good luck.
justlooking
Posts: 118
Joined: Sat Feb 14, 2009 1:02 am

Re: Flight for Non-Accompanying Spouse

Post by justlooking »

Bummer. Thanks for your advice, everybody. This is a new school, so I don't think if I got a flight allowance that it would create any resentment at this point, but I take the point. I will say to Sid that he didn't get the offer because he qualified for single status. The school wants me too. I'm an experienced teacher, DPC, IB examiner, etc. It's just that I'm happy working from home at the moment and don't want to give up the sweat pants to go back in a school building just yet. Maybe in a couple of years
sid
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Joined: Sat Dec 02, 2006 11:44 am

Re: Flight for Non-Accompanying Spouse

Post by sid »

Despite my first post probably sounding like a downer, I'm rooting for you. Ask, and you may receive. Just don't get your hopes up too high. In most schools in my experience, this is a no.
Heliotrope
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Joined: Sun May 13, 2018 1:48 am

Re: Flight for Non-Accompanying Spouse

Post by Heliotrope »

Just to clarify: I wouldn't recommend deceiving your husband's employer by pretending you intend to live there, but rather that the school can use the trailing spouse option to give you your flights under a normal contract, and no special provisions have to be made. It'll still depends on if the school wants to spend the extra money, but as said, you can always try and negotiate.
As said, at previous schools sometimes a trailing spouse would be gone for close to or over a year, and nobody at the school ever raised the issue of altering the benefits.
PsyGuy
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Location: Northern Europe

Discussion

Post by PsyGuy »

@Sid is just bunk. There is no deception, youre not the ISs IT, you dont have a contract with them, you dont owe them anything and youre not their prisoner. You can absolutely use their coin to fly in (assuming thats a benefit) and still do whatever you want, including going back to the US.
shadowjack
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Joined: Sat Oct 06, 2012 9:49 am

Re: Flight for Non-Accompanying Spouse

Post by shadowjack »

Justlooking:

1. If you are not on campus in the US, why do you assume you would automatically be on campus overseas? If that is what is holding you back?

2. If you are working in the US, but getting the benefits of a spouse living in the country my school is in, as a trailing, or dependent, spouse, but were never there, we would definitely be looking into it. Although PG talks about entitlement - you are only entitled if you are really a dependent, trailing spouse, which you are clearly not.

Just my two halalas
justlooking
Posts: 118
Joined: Sat Feb 14, 2009 1:02 am

Re: Flight for Non-Accompanying Spouse

Post by justlooking »

Shadowjack, I'm working for a virtual school, so it's full time work from home unrelated to Covid. Most schools in the U.S. are in the building and I assume that most schools globally will be moving toward that unless we get hit by another crazy variant. Even in places that friends teach that have been virtual this year (AUS, Vietnam, Korea, etc.), there are plans to get back to in person or hybrid soon. I really like what I'm doing coaching online and have some elderly relatives that I'd like to be available for. However, I'm sure I'll miss the classroom energy in a few years, and would like to eventually join my husband to be a teaching couple again. I can certainly be with him in country for a bunch of the school year since I have that flexibility in my new job. I just wouldn't be a typical trailing spouse.
sid
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Joined: Sat Dec 02, 2006 11:44 am

Re: Flight for Non-Accompanying Spouse

Post by sid »

Some schools have clear cut definitions for what an accompanying spouse or child is. Most do not. Those that do, you could expect something along the lines of maintaining their primary residence in the country, being physically present for at least six months per year, maintaining a residence visa. For schools without, they’d still expect to see behavior along those lines.
Six months a year might prove difficult, presuming you’d be away already for all of summer and Christmas. And who wants to teach online in the USA time zones from the ME for six months a year?
Maintaining a residence visa also a challenge if you intend to go and come frequently. Getting the initial visa in the ME can take months, and you have to stay in the country continuously until it’s issued. Most take around a month, but a sizable portion take significantly longer, even up to six months. We occasionally had teachers who couldn’t get them in time to travel at Christmas. Which really sucked for them, and you can’t always predict whose visa will take longer.
Once you have the visa, there can be restrictions on how long you can be outside the country each year. Never really an issue for those who are living there, but you could find your visa cancelled automatically at some point, and the school asking questions.
PsyGuy
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Location: Northern Europe

Reply

Post by PsyGuy »

@SJ

The LW is going to be there thats literally their inquiry. Flights move the LWs trailing spouse there, thus they are there. They are clearly a dependent trailing spouse, what a spouse who isnt on your payroll and for which you dont have a contract with means they owe you all of nothing. You can choose to also provide them all of nothing, but they dont owe you anything for a benefit you provide the contracted IT. Obligations and duties are determined by agreement and contract you dont have a contract with a trailing dependent spouse.

@Sid

What some leader gets in their head as an expectation only matters in the bubble thats their head. They dont owe you anything, they arent your employee and you arent their supervisor. By all means its your coin you can absolutely put restrictions limits and conditions on it, but they arent your employee they dont owe you anything. If you give a dependent spouse a flight in they arent your prisoner and they dont owe you anything.
Ask all the questions you want, heres the answer "my spouse wanted to go back to X because they are an adult and they wanted to." End of discussion.
sid
Posts: 1392
Joined: Sat Dec 02, 2006 11:44 am

Re: Flight for Non-Accompanying Spouse

Post by sid »

In place of expectations, perhaps it would be better to say something like the criteria for deciding who is considered a trailing spouse and therefore gets benefits.
A trailing would indeed need to trail their spouse in order to be considered a trailing spouse. An absentee, distant, estranged or separated spouse is not the same thing. An adult can indeed come and go as they please, but may find that doing so moves them out of the school’s definition of trailing spouse.
justlooking
Posts: 118
Joined: Sat Feb 14, 2009 1:02 am

Re: Flight for Non-Accompanying Spouse

Post by justlooking »

Just a follow up for your FYI: the school did offer money for yearly flights for both of us. No restrictions really on what it means to be a trailing spouse. Or at least none so far. Not sure if we're moving forward because the salary is a little low, but we're considering it.

I've lived and worked in the ME before: UAE, Oman, Jordan, and Egypt. I've never had an issue with the visa or heard a horror story about a dependent visa in any of those spots. Sometimes you have to leave the country once a month and come back in until they get it settled, but in those schools/countries, they had it done well before Christmas
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