saying no nicely to a contract signed?

senator
Posts: 384
Joined: Tue Sep 19, 2006 1:53 am

Re: saying no nicely to a contract signed?

Post by senator »

I agree. My previous post is just based on my personal experience and to provide a new way to look at your situation.

I believe that the playing field is so far skewed, with so much advantage going to the schools, that I think any teacher should always go for the best deal he/she can get that they feel will make them happy.

Back out of your contract if you really feel that a better option for you exists. The school heads don't care about your career or happiness, only about their own. Only you can provide the life you want for yourself and your family.

And if you do well at your preferred school and get good recommendations, there will be no fallout.
PsyGuy
Posts: 10789
Joined: Wed Oct 12, 2011 9:51 am
Location: Northern Europe

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Post by PsyGuy »

Sid is also an admin, and its in their interest to perpetuate the myth that the admins and ISs control your life/career and that you should only do what admins say you should do, or your career will be doomed and youll never get the sacred reference you need to get to an elite tier IS. Its fear mongering they know they dont have the infrastructure or resources to regulate contract enforcement. What they do have the resources to do is maintain the perception that they can regulate IT contract enforcement.
Lets look at a couple of scenarios. We will call our admin/HOS "Sidlina" and our IT "Psyephene", Sidlina is the HOS of third tier Acme AS, and Psyephene is moving up to IS Genovia a posh 1st tier WE IS

Scenario 1:

Dear Sidlina,

Despite having recently signed a contract with Acme AS, I just accepted an offer from Genovia IS based on the superior compensation package that was three times the salary and a full relocation package. Which is in the heart of the French Mediterranean and provides a far superior quality of life. Anyone would be nuts to say no to such an opportunity compared to the trash of a school Acme AS is. Good luck finding someone in August to start in a few weeks.

Bestie's forever,

Psyephene

In this scenario youre burned. You cant antagonize admins so brazenly, without spin and no repercussions. Even if Sidlina knows nothing about IS Genovia or its HOS it will take all of 2 minutes to google the IS and send off an email to the IS requesting the direct email of its HOS, and then an email with a brief description and copies of Psyephenes resume/CV. Another email to Psyephenes agency and Psyephene will be dropped from the agency.

Now lets look at scenario 2:

Dear Sidlina,

It is with long consideration and deep regret that iIam writing you today with grave news. Fluffy our 8 year old daughters turtle has recently passed to the great pond in the sky. This tragic loss in our family has effected our family greatly, and our daughters mental and social welfare has to be our top priority, and her mental health professional has indicated that additional change in her life could have dire consequences if not allowed to heal and process this loss.
While we understand that we have an agreement, it is with great regret we must withdrawal our acceptance of your appointment, at Acme AS. While the opportunity to work with such an amazing faculty, staff and students in an exciting region of the world we must protect the welfare of our daughter, as any parents priority should be.
It is our greatest wish that Acme AS can recover from this change of circumstances and should we be of any assistance in the future please do not hesitate to call on us.

Sincerely,

Psyephene

In this scenario we have several significant variables effecting followup. 1) There is no indication of who to follow up with. There is no indication there is another IS involved and who it could possibly be (again thee is no clearing house of IT appointments). 2) There is no indication they are even searching for another position. 3) What adult cant sympathize with a family tragedy, if Sidlina is a parent herself, she has to understand, and who is going to be a big B over a child suffering a death.
Lets assume Sidlina is motivated to do something about this, she inserts her HOS ring into her secret passageway, and descends the stairs to her IS secret control room, where she inserts her security key into the pedestal and flips the cover and the "Big Red Button" pushing it a klaxon sounds and the holo IS network AI appears, requesting the identifying information on Psyephene. Then what? a whole bunch of nothing. Sidlina contacts her 5 BFF HOSs but HOS 1 (Gabriel) has to go down to the lingire store to pick up her new negligee for her weekend on Carlos yacht while her husband thinks she at a conference on 5E integration.
Sidlinas HOS 2 (Bree)has other things to do like run an IS, recruiting, transcripts, giving tours to parents.
Sidlinas HOS 3 (Lynette) has 3 elementary school triplets of her own and a husband and IS to run, she will barely have time to pick up her dry cleaning.
Sidlinas HOS 4 (Susan) is working on her Masters research while also running an IS which is opening a new purpose build campus and building and constant contact with ownership.
Sidlinas HOS 5 (Edie) totally is on board.......

So the cycle continues, even if Sidlina is highly invested, that doesnt mean her peer network is. There are over 2000 (TWO THOUSAND) fully authorized IB ISs, and thats just the IB ISs its not the American/AP, British IGCSE/A levels or any of the other national curriculum ISs. Whats Sidlina going to do call everyone, email everyone, and when done do it all over agian, because its going to take forever to do it the first time, and you still wont get everyone or anywhere even close to every IS (no one knows how many ISs there are in the world).
No one has the time or resources to engage such an immense task, with such dubious outcomes and results. In practicality you inform Psyephenes agency, and you move on.

Assume at the worst the Sidlina discover a few months later that Psyephene has been hired by another IS. Even after being dropped by her agency. So what? Psyephene just explains that after their daughter spent an intensive amount of therapy, their daughter recovered, and that they still needed a job.

Its all about how you spin the story.
sid
Posts: 1392
Joined: Sat Dec 02, 2006 11:44 am

Re: saying no nicely to a contract signed?

Post by sid »

PG, that is a truly amusing version of events. "A" for effort. Much more entertaining to read than the direct attacks you've sometimes gone for.
Still, why paint admin types as self-serving heartless types? Must it be so? So cyclical, your argument: Admin types are awful and self-serving, therefore you must be self-serving and awful, and screw them before they can screw you.
I prefer to view the world from the perspective that most everyone is a pretty decent sort and will behave decently most of the time. It's served me well.
And I can't help but notice that in your stories, no one does anything wrong until the teacher breaks contract. The school is just sitting there, preparing for the teacher's arrival, and then BAM, the teacher quits. You want to assure the teacher that they can indeed do this, and get away with it, and point well taken, it's entirely possible that they can. But that doesn't make it right, nor is it a guarantee that they will definitely get away with it.
I think I've said enough on this thread. Sid out.

BTW I like puppies and the smell of baking bread.
auntiesocial
Posts: 36
Joined: Thu Aug 29, 2013 1:10 am

Re: saying no nicely to a contract signed?

Post by auntiesocial »

Ignore the hand-wringers, if you didn't apply through an agency, take the better sounding job and don't think twice about reneging on your initial contract. It's only been a couple of weeks and it's highly unlikely the school will think twice about it; admin types on here who tell you otherwise are either deceitful or in a very small minority. Most administrators are too busy getting on with looking for your replacement to invest the time and energy to blacklist or punish you.

The moralising argument that it's the same 'crime' as a school reneging on a contract is preposterous. Recruiting schools do not run the risk of uprooting their entire lives, only to be told they do not yet have a new physics teacher - unlike teachers themselves. They have the resources to find another teacher without too much fuss or interruption and the financial impact is a drop in the ocean for them.

Life's too short. Ignore the moralising and take the choice best for you.
booboo14
Posts: 39
Joined: Wed May 07, 2014 8:55 am

Re: saying no nicely to a contract signed?

Post by booboo14 »

sid wrote:
> It's not that there's a guarantee that a certain head knows another
> specific head. There's not.
> But in the science of 7 degrees of separation (it is a science)

It is not a science. It is an unproven theory related to Network Science. In fact, in the strictest sense it cannot hold true.

What about being honest with the first school...maybe they won't want a teacher that expresses doubts and let you off.
PsyGuy
Posts: 10789
Joined: Wed Oct 12, 2011 9:51 am
Location: Northern Europe

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Post by PsyGuy »

@booboo14

What if the honesty doesnt work? Then youve confessed, and youre at the admin/recruiters mercy.

@sid

I paint them with the palette they supply. Have you seen the paid side of this site, why does this forum exist if all leadership is Morgan Freeman benevolent, mentors?
No it need not be so, if the profession had a better system of policing admins.management it would be better. Its hard being an admin//management, your not in charge, ownership is in charge and while your at a level above ITs you still have a master who bids you do as they please. An admin doesnt stay admin long when they disregard directives of ownership.
Which is the issue in that ISs have all the poser not most of the power, or some of the power but all the power, the only power an IT has on any given day is to pull a runner or do the head bauble and go along and get along.

Thats called preemptive action. Yeah you do, because there is no such thing as "them" nothing bad or negative happens to admins and ISs. I was working with an associate last year family of four 2 kids, trailing spouse who ad arranged fro some cafeteria/playground part time work. The family had sold their house, had spent $5K on airfare when the second week of August they get an email from the IS:

"We regret to inform you that your position is no longer available"

That was it, they ignored all other forms of contact and this family had to vacate their house and their home in a few weeks, they have useless tickets and that was it. After the 2 minutes that IS took to ruin this families life they went right on to the next item on their to do list. It took some time to finally get a response through the agency which amounted to the ISs intended STEM program did not gain sufficient enrollment, and nothing happened to the IS. The family decided to still travel to their destination and luckily the teacher was able to get full time ESOL work, as well as the trailing spouse. They did get a months salary from the IS through the regional labor board. A few weeks later the IS posted a very similar position though not identical with one significant difference, "Only single and teaching couples should apply".

What was "right" about that?

Resorting to moralistic arguments is indicative of ceding the technical and practical arguments as lacking merit.

No it isnt a guarantee, it is however very much not the doom and gloom nor anything close to an assurance of punitive consequences should an IT choose to take that approach.
I can not accept the position that employs fear mongering with the assumptive position of a blacklist, or some form of contract enforcement clearinghouse or the implication that recruiters/HOS/admins/management/leadership have some form of telepathy that allows them to "know" and IT has broken a contract.

The 7 degrees of separation and "stars" is pseudo-science, pop-psychology. Its in the same category as Phrenology and other junk science.
Mr DepTrai

Re: saying no nicely to a contract signed?

Post by Mr DepTrai »

So what did you decide to do?
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