Rob, Singapore American School has changed their housing policy again. The school will no longer hold leases for the teachers and housing allowance is paid in cash in your monthly check. It may be used to purchase property if you want.

There are several international schools that have preschool and preK programs, some starting as early as age 3. There are also private preschool programs in most areas in your school doesn't have a program for 3 year olds. Also, I would guess that most teachers who have young children hire a nanny to take care of their children.

Several international schools have speech/language pathologists. Some are employed by the school, in other schools, they are independent contractors but who work with students within the school day on campus.

There are also things to consider, such as whether you are going to have to purchase a car, furniture, etc. Clarify with your movers about how accurate they are with their moving estimates and what responsibility they bear, if any, if they are way off on their estimate. In our case, we had one mover whose estimate was less than half what our actual weight was, so we had an unpleasant "surprise" on the other end when we were way over our moving allowance. Some schools give you a storage allowance and some don't. If you will be paying for storage, you might want to think carefully about whether what you put into storage is worth paying over $1000/year to store it. Through the years, it adds up to quite a chunk.

There are also a lot of things that you probably won't move with you, but need to have to set up a household, such as garbage cans, toilet bowl brushes, etc. We're always surprised each time at how much all the "little things" add up to!

Sorry, Steventon, Jeddah IS in Saudi.

Does anyone know why forum #2 is locked? I was going to respond to a posting, but found that the forum was locked and that no postings can be made to it?

My experience has been that most IB schools look for teachers who already have IB training and experience. Perhaps with the teacher shortage this is changing.

I think that some of it depends upon where you want to be. If you want to teach in Asia, I would definitely plan on going to the Bangkok fair. I think that signing contracts before the winter break is becoming more of a norm in most international schools. We were expected to commit earlier than that, but had to sign contracts before leaving in December.

Witness, The American School of Dubai no longer pays into Social Security. They used to when they were an ISS school. You might want to check into other ISS schools, because I believe they do pay into Social Security since your contract is actually signed with ISS. You also pay into NJ short term disability, unemployment, etc.

Do NOT accept a job and then change your mind if you get a better offer. If you verbally accept an offer, that is considered the same as signing a contract. (Just think how you would feel if a school offered you a job and you accepted and then a month later, the school called you back and said that they had found a candidate that they liked better and therefore were rescinding their offer!) You can tell a school that you are waiting to hear from other schools, but most schools will not hold a job for you for that long. Some schools will give you 24 hours or so, perhaps a bit longer, but most are not going to want to hold a job for you while you wait to hear from other schools.

Sorry, I don't know of any property links, but you could probably do a google search to look for links. I would definitely ask the school for the location of their housing. Will they put you up in a hotel or serviced apartment until you find housing if you choose to go that route? Is the school provided housing "furnished" or do you have to buy your own furniture? Could you opt to take the school provided housing for the first year and then switch over to an allowance if you wanted to? Personally, while 110,000 dhs sounds like a lot of money, I think you'll find it really isn't when you start looking for a place, especially if you have to take into consideration the fact that the school would pick up 1/2 of your utilities if you are in school housing. If the school housing is near the school and would save you a lengthy commute every day, it would be another bonus. How about writing to some of the teachers currently teaching at the school and ask them about where they live and what they pay? The problem is that even though the government has supposedly put rent caps into effect, limiting the % that a landlord can raise the rent each year, in reality, it isn't enforced and the rents have really skyrocketed! Just a few years ago, 110,000 would get you a decent villa in Jumeirah.

Dubai is a lot more expensive (particularly housing) than Chicago. 110,000 will get you a 2 bedroom apartment in Al Barsha. Nothing special...and then you'd have utilities on top of that. What type of housing are they offering you (with 1/2 of your utilities)? Where is it located? Traffic is horrific, so you aren't going to want to live too far out.

You'd be better off taking the free housing and paying for half of your utilities.

Your school should handle your visa. We entered on a work visa. The school arranged for this before we arrived and it was waiting for us upon our arrival. (The school faxed us a copy for our records so that we would have it when we arrived, in case there were any questions with the airlines, who might want to see a visa stamped in your passport.) I have heard of some schools in the UAE having their teachers enter on a tourist visa (available upon arrival), but they shouldn't be doing it this way.

There was no question when we flew in for an interview that we were overseas hires! We were simply arranging to meet with the school "on site" rather than at a job fair. We've done this a couple of times at top tier schools and when we've arrived for our orientation in the summer have discovered that most of the other new hires did the same thing that we did. If a school doesn't see you as a top candidate, they won't encourage you to come.