shadowjack wrote:
> OK guys back on topic. MizMorton IS employed with her spouse, they do have
> a backup plan, and why work ata crap school overseas just to be overseas?

Honestly, because we want to travel and can't afford to now. If simply living in a foreign country constitutes traveling, I'm in. Even for just the minimum contract (our school has offered to hold our jobs for two years-- no joke, and yes, it's in writing). We are in a good place now, but we feel smothered by the monotony. We've been here 12 years, seen everything within a 200 mile radius, we want to use our passports, our brains are getting mushy. But teaching in the US means living paycheck to paycheck, so this is a good option. We also grew up overseas so we want to live abroad again as opposed to just vacation.

That said, I've gotten some fantastic, constructive PMs. Not rainbow-farting unicorn messages, just helpful information. So thank you so much to all of you who have written. And btw, this was Missy's topic originally, I just hijacked it with my big talky mouth.

PsyGuy wrote:
> I dearly and sincerely apologize for offending you. It was not my intention
> to call you a DUFF. My intent and expressed poorly and I am sorry, was in
> relation to admins/recruiters at fairs and other recruiting activities who
> smile at you while saying "Thanks but not this time" after
> waiting in line for 20 minutes and not even getting 10 seconds of time, or
> the recruiter who suggest a second day, second string interview, or the
> ones who never get back to you about a resume or application packet, after
> you spend an hour completing it and your references complete the reference
> forms.

I've read that a few times now, and I'm still not sure what you're saying. Look, the admins may be saying "thanks but not this time," and it sucks, but please try not to kick people when they are already down. I get it man, it's a no, I don't need painful and insulting a n a l o g i e s. (that word was initially removed when I posted it whole.)

> Again, I truly am sorry for any offense and insult.

Apology accepted, but I am definitely gun-shy now, and I still think you are a bully. Live and learn. I won't post as much.

> It might be too late to sell your house, but I wouldnt consider doing so
> the firt year ata new school, you really dont know how a school is going
> to turn out, and youd like to have a place to come back too if it doesnt
> work out. This is part of having an exit or in some cases escape plan.

This is actually something we've been wanting to do anyway due to our local circumstances (1 hr commute). We have a backup plan if we have to cut & run.

I've been writing to most of the schools through Search. Yesterday it occurred to me that if a school gets an application thru Search, and another directly, might they go for the direct applicant so they don't have to pay the Search fee?

But then, if I apply directly, I'd have to tell Search where I got a job anyway. Right?

Just grasping at straws at this point.

Missy, amen sister. Exactly the same experience here. Nothing. My husband and I have set a cutoff date for ourselves since after April we wouldn't have enough time to sell our house, and are starting to talk about plans for next year (our childcare situation will change, something that teaching abroad would have solved). We'll try again in the fall.

PM me for moral support anytime. You're likely to be insulted here on the forum. Just last week I was called the Designated Ugly Fat Friend by someone who has never met me.

Thank you very much, Senator. I needed that, I've been avoiding this place a little, and I do feel better. 45% [of teachers who get hired post-fair] is a good number, it is still February, and new jobs are still popping up here and there.

PsyGuy, why shouldn't this be for support? Really, why not? And why do you get to decide what it's for, and be the Comic Book Store Guy who has to put everyone in their place? Constantly harping on "every teacher thinks he's a rock star, and they're not" is kind of demoralizing (and what is a DUFF girl?). I know you have 9274 certifications and degrees but I'm going to say something I have wanted to say since I joined: Please, please, for the love of all that is holy, YOU ARE = YOU'RE. Not YOUR, which indicates possession. We are educators!

Do you recommend "reminding" a school if you're still interested? Is it better to be a squeaky wheel, or just be quiet and take a hint? There was one school that said no to us about a month ago. The jobs remained active on Search. I wrote them to say that we were still very interested, if they were having trouble filling the positions. The next day, the positions had been deleted. I consider that a success if it got someone to just update their jobs list.

But as of today, another school has updated two positions we've applied for. The head told us at the fair that he had filled them just before our interview. Should I bug him again?

Dukkha wrote:
>Schools will be at sign-up who, in my view, have
> absolutely no business being there. If those schools (say in Switzerland or
> somewhere--*wink, wink*) appear at sign-up /only/ to present a facade of
> "We're still hiring", when they have already hired their top
> choices and just want to witness the signing and ink drying on that
> contract, and/or when all they are interested in are the candidates they've
> already vetted? What the bloody %&"! kind of example does that set
> to hopeful candidates? Get those schools out of the fairs, or have them do
> their thing in private areas. Call it the "Platinum Candidate
> Lounge"; call it "Priority Candidate Lobby"; call it
> whatever you want. Charge another 250 bucks for access. But get those damn
> schools out of the sign-up sessions!
>

I cannot possibly agree with you more. See also, schools that show up with one position to fill.

Thanks everyone, those of you who are being encouraging anyway. I am trying to stay positive, we're widening our search*, and I'm also on TIE. I researched countries well before the fair-- read all the expat blogs, looked at real estate, studied Google Earth, contacted friends, the works, and I'm still going.. I'm definitely still sending out our CVs, in earnest!

*Look, there are some schools about which I've read reviews that say "I'd rather drink poison than work there again," or they're places where people are trying to break their contracts within a few months. I DO want a job, but I'm not desperate enough to go from the frying pan into the fire. The school we're in right now is very cool and understanding (not a frying pan at all really) and they're notorious for not filling vacancies until very late in the summer, so we don't have to give notice now anyway.

It just bothers me that I'm sending out applications, emails, and even just requests for application packets (as with the Portugal jobs that just came up today) and not getting any response. Not an application packet, not "got your e-mail, we'll get back to you," just... silence. I'm trying to remind myself that it is still February, but this is not at all how I thought it would go down, being a teaching couple in two broad subjects with plenty of experience. I feel like a teenage girl waiting for the guy to call, wondering if her phone is working.

ETA: You have to understand that I live outside of Boston and we're about to get our fourth foot of snow. As I said to someone in a PM, this job inactivity + crazy snow makes Jack a dull boy.

Well, this is helpful, because it's at least something. My agent is Jessica, Search president and obviously very busy with fairs. Is there something she should be doing for me right now?

The silence is deafening. Is it normal to just hear NOTHING from schools? It's making me insane. My husband is wondering if we have some sort of flag on our Search profiles, some kind of stink on us that we don't know about. I'm not even getting replies to my PMs here. *tap*tap*tap* is this thing on?

Back to tearing my hair out.

My husband and I draw the line at machetes. If a country has a reputation for using them on people, they're out. We call them Machete Countries.

For me, that would be the difference between, say, Syria's and Switzerland's problems. Spotty electricity and Internet in a place like Albania? Fine. Possibility of machete hacking? Not fine.

Thank you senator! I am not desperate. We have a good gig right now in a school we truly love, so the consolation prize isn't bad.

Re: AP-- I also didn't want to pretend I could give a job 100% if I know I'm not comfortable in that subject. I want to deliver on my promise of excellence, and I don't have the confidence for AP Physics whether they'd take me or not (I had a recruiter from Egypt ask me that, actually-- "well, COULD you teach it?"). I don't want to false-advertise. Again, I'll stay here if the right job doesn't come up. It'll happen! All up to fate.

I will add that I did apply for another job that was half in my certification, and half not, but in a subject I have a very keen personal interest. I could definitely teach that one, even with zero experience, because I love the subject.

Done, re: everything you said. I have written it as a marketable story.

There's low-hanging fruit, and then there's fruit you're allergic to that will make you sick. We have boundaries, even if that means staying home. But thanks for the advice.

I don't know how it works anywhere else, but for the school I'm in now (here in the US), you have to have had the AP training to teach AP courses.

That said, I have a great story to back up my ability claim. I have a General Science certification, which I managed to get without having ever taken a proper mechanical physics class (I filled the requirement with quantum physics, which is not really taught to K-12 kids). One year, I was given a section of Intro Physics. I basically had to teach it to myself, staying a chapter ahead of the kids. They had a state standardized test in it at the end of the year, and I am very proud to say that 100% of my kids passed. 100%. I can assure you that this was not a group of geniuses, either. I know that standardized tests don't necessarily prove mastery, but it's the only way I can quantify my ability to teach a subject I wasn't trained to teach.

ETA: In terms of general ability, I once had a two-week temp job at a major transportation engineering firm. I was supposed to answer phones. Within a few days, they had me editing reports, and by the end of the two weeks they were begging me to stay and offering to send me to school to become a transportation engineer. I'm no dummy. (I already had a teaching job at the time; this was summer.)

PsyGuy, I wasn't devastated, and I didn't cry. I was realistic going in. Seeing the lack of jobs available was the biggest letdown for us, and the biggest clue that we'd be leaving with nothing. The worst part for me is that we still have to deal with the drudgery of looking. Ugh. On the upside, we've gotten a couple of e-mails from admins we met who were impressed with us and our materials, saying they were sorry they didn't have positions. I'm optimistic, as long as the schools we're applying to now will just LOOK at us.

I'm not going to throw anyone under the bus publicly, but if you want to know who the off-putting HOS was, PM me. I doubt you'll be looking there, it's a tiny place.

Fraisinette, congratulations! Check your messages!

Ugh. Nothing.

Our three interviews were scheduled on Saturday, conveniently, in order of preference for us. School #1 was our dream school, our top choice long before we went to the fair! School #2 was in a place we hadn't considered, but we clicked with the director immediately. School #3 was the Great School/Tough Place (it's in India) where the admins actually contacted us first.

Friday night, we got two e-mails. School #2 only has a certain number of spots for teachers' kids, and they just filled another position that took those two spots. So unless we wanted to fork over 1/3 of our very small salary for our kids' tuition... Boo. We loved that director and the school seemed like a lot of fun. It also seemed like we would have had those jobs in the bag, but then again... he did schedule us for Second-String Saturday.

The other e-mail was from India, School #3. Since we'd talked to them, the position had changed a little and now some upper-level AP was needed, which I'm not qualified to do, so we were out of the running. I do want to keep in touch with the three admins though. Every one of them was great, someone I'd love to work for.

So we prepared for our only interview with the #1 SCHOOL. There were two positions open for each of our subject, which we thought doubled our odds. We drilled each other on possible interview questions, quizzed each other on the school's philosophy and mission. I white-stripped my teeth. Texted our parents. I add all this detail because it makes what happen next all the more sad. We showed up ten minutes early for the interview, feeling so confident that we had this. The director walked out to greet us and said that unfortunately, he had just filled the positions. All four of them. We were so numb that we took it in stride, but even as I type this now I can feel my face burning with disappointment.

We spent the rest of the day going to presentations, which was a great idea because we got to meet a few admins. For me, the most valuable part of the fair was finding out what the admins were like in person. There were two schools I really had my heart set on, which looked perfect for us on paper. I met the director of one, and he was so... I will just say that we had no chemistry, and I was so put off by him that I almost physically recoiled. Until he leaves that school I will not be looking at it again. The director of the other one was a sweet man, but we just didn't seem to be speaking the same language. Again, no chemistry. I'd talk to him and he'd give me a slightly befuddled look, and then sort of look past me. I mentioned a job that's offered on his school's page and he said he didn't know what I was talking about. So... not a good fit. We went to a presentation for a top school-- one of the best in the world (yes PsyGuy, there were a few of those there)-- and there was exactly one guy sitting in the audience. So we got to chat informally with the two admins for a half hour! That was fantastic.

Moving forward, I am confident we'll find something. As the first string is hired, they have to leave their jobs, so those will be open. The real bummer is not being able to feel out the bosses in person. I hate doing things by e-mail.

Senator, I hope you get home okay. And for what it's worth, I had done a ton of research on all of these schools, so I didn't bother with the ones that were super-crappy just for the sake of racking up interviews.