We looked into getting a mortgage a couple of years ago, but the hoops we were going to have to jump through to prove our income were ridiculous (host country lawyer involvement, every pay stub, school registration copies, etc.) and we were going to have to go back to the US to deal with everything. In the end, we just decided to pay cash because it was that much easier.

A top tier school isn't going to negotiate much, if at all, since they have set salary scales based on education/experience. You might be able to get an additional step, but I wouldn't get my hopes up.

Pakistan is requiring that all teachers be vaccinated. Our school requires all students 12+ be vaccinated.

Psychometrika wrote:
> I just use a regular taxable brokerage account at Schwab and put my money
> in index funds.
>
> A traditional IRA would be pointless for me as I already don’t pay taxes on
> my income. A Roth has hypothetical advantages, but since I don’t plan on
> withdrawing an amount that would exceed the long term capital gains
> threshold of over $40k annually (80K for married) the effective tax rate on
> my taxable account will be close to zero anyway.

This is the way to do it. Also, for anyone in their 20's/30's reading this, start investing now if you haven't already. So many of my coworkers waited until their 40s/50s to start investing and are now trying to figure out how to stay overseas as they approach their 60s because they can't yet afford to retire.

I don't work there, but for the people that do, I hope they figure out how to adapt to the 4.5 days without extending the teaching hours. We have the same work week in my country and just do a weekly A/B schedule to take care of the half day. It's not perfect, but it's much better than having to work an extra hour a day.

angelica1981 wrote:
> marieh wrote:
> > angelica1981 wrote:
> > > > many other highly insecure and feeble-minded people. So while she
> calls
> > others
> > > > selfish and foul names (real classy!), I say it takes one to know one.
> >
> > This is the first statement you've made I've agreed with. I'm glad you were able
> to
> > identify another one of your kind.
>
> Um, I didn't write that.
I am so, so very sorry. I had to edit the quote and got the name wrong. It should have been shawanda. Please forgive me!

angelica1981 wrote:
> > many other highly insecure and feeble-minded people. So while she calls others
> > selfish and foul names (real classy!), I say it takes one to know one.

This is the first statement you've made I've agreed with. I'm glad you were able to identify another one of your kind.

IE_sciteacher wrote:
> If we do have to go online, which could realistically happen, it will be a
> very challenging transition as we have only been in person for the past 16
> months.

We're in the opposite situation. We were online for the past 16 months and are going back in person at the end of the month. Mask requirement for all grades and an emphasis on ventilation (outdoor lunches instead of indoor; only outdoor sports). No parents/maids allowed on campus. I agree it will be a challenging transition.

News has come out over the past few days that vaccinated individuals are capable of transmitting the . and that the Delta variant causes a more severe infection in unvaccinated populations, including young children. Has anyone heard from their school about starting school online this year given these recent developments? Or are your schools still planning to open in person?

(1) Pakistan
(2) We've had no visa issues and everyone will be able to get here.
(3) It's still way too early to tell as students/families leave and others arrive, but it sounds like we'll likely stay flat this year compared to the end of last. Our "big" (in relative terms compared to other years) exodus was at the beginning of last year when we told people we'd be 100% online.

Pakistan and Saudi

New Jersey has a reciprocity agreement with Florida and offers permanent licenses that do not need to be renewed. That's what I did.

I have 16 periods a week, with each period being 50 min longs with 3 preps (2 AP and 1 regular) This is 13.33 teaching hours, which is a little over 40% of the 33 hours a week I spend in school. This doesn't include coaching, but I get a stipend for that (and it's a volunteer position) so I'm not including that in the above. I also have lunch duty (40 min per day) for one week every 2-3 months.

Compared to the 70 hours a week I sometimes worked as an engineer, this is nothing.

ATS compliant resumes are extremely important in other fields (specifically, tech), but I cannot imagine a school using an applicant tracking system. There is simply no need to unless you are dealing with thousands of applications. If you choose to have an ATS-compliant resume, you don't need someone to write it for you. Just keep the formatting simple and make sure you're including key words from the job advert.

Thames Pirate wrote:
> I guess it depends on if you mean "not host nationals" vs.
> "lots of nationalities." If the former, yeah, most schools would
> have few Emiratis. If the latter, there is likely a range that can
> probably be very dramatic. But of course, that comes back to the question:
> What do you call "international teaching"? Is an American at
> Washington IS or really a host national teaching in any IS an
> "international teacher"? Is an expat teacher in a nominally
> international school with 95%+ host nation students an "international
> teacher"? If you teach kids from your nation who just happen to be
> geographically elsewhere but culturally all host nation, is that
> "international teaching"?
>
> That's my point--without knowing what the definition of what the OP wants
> is, how do we answer the question?

Perhaps I'm jaded, but usually when I hear someone in the ME/SEA/SA talking about an "international" population, they specifically mean white children. If students have Emirati/Indian/Bengali/etc. last names they're "local" regardless of their upbringing and/or passport.