The International Schools Review Forum

Has anyone worked at newer schools (1-2 years old)? What did you find to be the pros and cons?

Could be a long list, but giving you the short answer. New ISs have growing pains, theres a strong energy of chaos that is interwoven in the day to day tasking. Sometimes its better and less intrusive and sometimes it frustrates you directly to no end. Something as simple as getting a reimbursement for some basic classroom supplies because despite being told you have a "budget" the reimbursement slip needs to be signed by three members of senior and executive leadership and they are way too busy with everything else, that your lucky to get your reimbursement by the end of the term. Woo to you if you have medical expenses to be reimbursed that requires some type of third . insurance provider to do something, because no one really understand how that works and it hasnt been done before so its a "growing experience", that never seems to happen (takes forever) despite making multiple attempts because everyone is so busy getting work done AND trying to figure out how to do that work and how it should be done. Too an aircon in your classroom that blows warm air, and cant be fixed because the design was wrong and the IS cant put in more powerful aircon units. Too students whos working understanding of English is FAR below what leadership described as "functional" when they sold you on the position and the LS IT for ESOL is ONE person who is now way to busy to do anything for your students other than providing superficial support to your students because as a new IS, they dont even have benchmark data for the students, which amounts to nothing more than some parents self report of what their childs ET said about them at their ES, such that in the files rating it says "super Awesome" you think, because some staff worker just wrote down what the parent said, and you want to yell at someone but its hard to blame leadership because their number one goal in a new IS is to build the reputation and build the endowment and that means bringing revenue in anyway you can since ownership wants to see their massive infrastructure costs return by generating those fees, so they accepted everyone who could pay. Meanwhile a week later someone in the finance office sends you a link which includes a form to apply for reimbursement, but doesnt have instructions if your supposed to copy it to your Google Drive and share it with the people you need approval from, not that you could do that because the IT manager is a local who speaks 8 words of English that includes "sign here" and "super awesome" and the email server doesnt work, or if it does you wouldnt know it, and have been using personal email anyway. So you end up printing out the approval form but one of the approval signatures you need is your HOD, and you dont have a HOD, not that you know of because you are a department of one and after asking around you finally find out that while you teach ICT to lower secondary your HOD is in PHE because your subject is considered an "enrichment" subject and the PHE department is the largest one within the "enrichment" cluster and the only one to have an HOD since the HOD is the owners nephew who "really likes sports". So you have to walk down 5 flights of stairs and out of the building and across the field, because they are still doing construction and pick up a hard hat, take 10 steps and return your hard hat, then walk into the sports hall, with the blasting aircon, because someone got the design right their. Inside you find 4 PHE ITs all locals because the 2 western PHE ITs are somewhere else and missed the super awesome pep team meeting, not that it matters because the PHE HOD takes 30 minutes making really bad small talk before scribbling on your form, which you would decide to skip in the future, but the aircon is so nice here, its not a bad idea to spend more time here and they have a pool that doesnt have water in it yet. So you walk back, pick up a hard hat, return a hard hat and get back to your room which is rolling hot now because someone turned on all your computers for ICT and you start wondering what day the logic boards are going to literally melt since with the added heat and the poor aircon and add "HOLY POO" 30 students to the room (which you only have 20 computers), you contemplate a betting pool on when the tech is going to melt. Then miracle of miracles your AP walks in all smiles for turning on the computers (after explaining the breaker is at the end of the hall, and gives you another key to the breaker box). You think what luck Ill have them sign my reimbursement approval now only to tell you that you did it wrong since the approval has to have a file number that directs to the receipt and documentation in the finance office, and they cant sign it without knowing what the reimbursement points too. So you go to the finance office and they look at you like your nuts because this is the first time the clerk who is there has heard anything but promises to ask when the office manager gets back. At the end of the day you get an email to come down to the finance office where they tell you your file number is FE00000002 which they could of emailed you, but didnt.

The positive aspect is with so much newness, and chaos you can pretty much go unnoticed for a year or two without really making a lot of effort to do much of anything since none of your students except maybe one or two understand enough English to really study at CALP at their GE and none of them understand a word in the project manuals. So you upload the software for the VM and then organize some youtube videos in the local language to compliment your instructional delivery since they really are decent kids, but they whisper too much, half the time to compare translations on their dictionary's and the other half because they have no idea what your saying and are bored. Your class looks well organized though because you have an incentive system that they get the last 10 minutes of class for league of legends if there are no class demerits, which your students take VERY seriously. All the students love your class and tell their parents, not that it matters because there Tiger mom knows absolutely nothing about technology aside from how to work her iPhone. On bad days you dont feel like teaching you just trip the breaker in the panel and if anyone asks the computers overheated so your doing independent (seat) work or you put on some technology orientated video about this new thing in pop tech culture and have them write a 1/2pp reaction too in their journal which you mark by placing a gold star on the ones that look neat and a silver star on the one that dont which takes you all of 5 minutes and that included finding where the stars in your desk are. You spend as little time in your classroom because its so hot which gives you a great excuse to just be hanging around anywhere and makes it difficult to find you when you arent in your room. At the end of the term they all do one project that you post on the board outside your room which becomes a huge deal to the students in organizing the layout and gives the parents something to look at. You give them a 10 item exam because thats the policy and everyone gets 5s and 6s. When asked to comment on growth progress you just qualify any and all remarks as being dependent on language acquisition, which nobody touches because everyone knows the ONE ESOL IT is way too busy and overworked, such that everyone just nods. The IS starts offering anyone who wants to make extra coin the opportunity to do ESOL as an ASP instead of a free ASP, but having an ICT lab you can just have game time as an ASP giving you an hour to do nothing. Looking back at the year you realize you maybe did 20 hours of actual work all year and the rest was babysitting and pushing "play", with your greatest accomplishment figuring out how long you can be off property in the surrounding neighborhood (conbini shop) snagging a brew and something to eat since the dining hall snack shop food is so horrible, except for the mango smoothies and the bottled tea. You lose 15 lbs your first year just from walking up and down all the stairs.

Well, I could stand to lose 15 pounds.
In all seriousness, I appreciate the response as it did give me some things to consider.