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by jrl
Mon Mar 28, 2016 4:18 am
Forum: Forum 1. From Questions About ISS & Search to Anything and Everything About International Teaching
Topic: To recruit or stay
Replies: 4
Views: 6950

To recruit or stay

FYI: All I am looking for is some perspective here. Your personal anecdotes & opinions are welcome.

My quandary is this: should we stay or go?

Here is our background:

I have been teaching for 8 years, four in America and four overseas. My husband has been teaching for 2 years, both overseas. I have my MA and he has his BA. I am a certified middle school humanities teacher, and all of my experience has been in middle school classrooms (grades 6-9) teaching language arts and social studies. I have two certifications, K-8 Elementary Education and 4-9 Humanities. My husband is an elementary school teacher with experience grades 3 & 4. He has his K-6 Elementary Education cert. We have been at the same school overseas for four years. Obviously, the first two years we were here he was earning his BA and certification online.

Here comes the question: to recruit or not to recruit during next year recruitment season?

Our factors:
We don't loathe our school, but we don't love it. We don't really see a future for ourselves here for various reasons. The package, however, is decent. Together, we have $60,000+ USD of disposable income yearly. We get flights home every year, professional development funds annually, free housing that is decent, and good local insurance. We like the city we live in and we like the country we live in. Our work environment is pretty relaxed and not cut throat, which matters to both of us. Our students are well behaved, and for the most part, the parents are too.

Our concerns:
Will my husband's lack of a MA and more than 2 years of experience leave us with a greater chance of moving on to a "worse" school with a "worse" package rather than on to a "better" school? While our school certainly doesn't have a bad reputation, it will certainly not impress recruiters. Would it be a waste of time to linger here in order to get my husband more experience?

So what do you think? Would you stay a little longer or recruit?