Ok.. How about underrated international schools?

[Bule]

I started an earlier thread about perceived "elite" international that don't live up to the hype. Let's turn it around- How about listing some schools that are pleasant surprises that usually don't get the publicity or talk of the elite schools?

Just to clarify- I am encouraging the exchange of opinions so that the readers out there can make their own conclusions about various schools. Yes, these will be subjective opinions.

One school in South America which seems to be improving greatly in the past few years is Colegio Nueva Granda in Bogota, Colombia. A friend of mine was just hired and she is raving about it. You never seem to hear much this school as compared to schools like Graded, Nido, Carol Morgan, etc. Could be because perceived danger in Colombia?

[overseasvet2]

I've had several colleagues that have reminisced favorably about the American Community School in Amman, Jordan. It's not a very big school but my friends say there was always a positive vibe. I've also heard good things about the school in Cyprus. Teachers seems to stay on and on at CAC in Egypt.

The hard part is that it can all change so quickly. If you get an interfering school board, a couple of nasty parents or ineffective administrators, a great school in which to work can quickly go downhill. Likewise, schools can get bad reputations and then it takes years to get it turned around. Guess the moral of the story is that if you like where you are, don't be in a rush to leave!

[PsyGuy]

I agree with overseas vet. Its too easy and can happen very fast for a school to go downhill very quickly. The schools that have the most stability tend to have the largest school enrollments, and so have the most financial strength. You can say all you want about location, students, parents, teachers admins, etc, but at the root of all those is money and a schools financial foundation is its enrollment. As a school gets smaller and smaller its operating margins get leaner and leaner, and they develop that "paycheck" mentality (the schools just want to pay there bills, and hope nothing goes wrong). Heres what happens, you have a small school, and your operating costs (infrastructure, payroll, etc) take up nearly all your budget. So one winter morning a waterline breaks, and floods the science lab. You shut the water off, and get it repaired, but you cant replace the science lab, so now your science classes have to contend themselves with lectures, and worksheets. So what happens. Well first the students get bored. Second, the parents get upset because they arent getting there moneys worth (we didnt pay all this tuition money just to have our child doing worksheets). The teacher isnt happy, because this isnt what they wanted to do either. Meanwhile you have a PR problem because the word is getting out that your school has financial difficulties, and parents start looking at pulling there kids out and sending them to the bigger better school. Your teachers start developing an attitude because they dont know if they will have contracts, and there wasnt anything great about their "OK housing" and all the little hoops you have to jump through, that now its looking like the teachers have gone past the tipping point. So they start looking for new jobs for next year. On the other side of the world reviews are going around on job forums, and the faculty your hiring for next year suddenly arent as interested in your school anymore, and as an admin you cant increase your package, so you have to start looking at lessor qualified/experienced teachers. The admins are getting increased pressure to basically do something with nothing (which by the way is practical definition of an administrator), because the school doesnt have the money to make things better. All this boils up to the owner who the whole time is calculating the risk of investing more cash in a project (the school) that may go under anyway.

[peelish]

Seoul International School is a very good school and community and almost completely off the radar. My wife and I love the school.