Schools contacting you to set up interviews before a SA fair

wrldtrvlr123
Posts: 1173
Joined: Sat Feb 06, 2010 10:59 am
Location: Japan

Re: Schools contacting you to set up interviews before a SA

Post by wrldtrvlr123 »

Walter wrote:
> Quite right too. Lots of interest in Learning Support - at all levels - in
> international schools. Look up "Next Frontier - Inclusion", which
> is being driven by Bill and Ochan Powell. They have conferences around the
> world for international school LS teachers, and they are sell outs. This is
> a really good field to get into as a teacher!
-----------------------------------
NFI has always had good ideas and they certainly are working towards some admirable goals. I am, however, still waiting for word that their member schools (they haven't updated the website in a few years) have actually made meaningful changes to their admissions policies and/or inclusion programs to include students beyond the mild range (whatever that might mean for individual schools). Still, LS teachers can always find a job almost anywhere in the world.
PsyGuy
Posts: 10789
Joined: Wed Oct 12, 2011 9:51 am
Location: Northern Europe

Discussion

Post by PsyGuy »

I concur with @WT123, NFL is STILL more concept and talk than action and implementation. Its one of those PopEd ideas that gets attention and seminar registration, but ISs and leadership quickly realize they cant implement because ownership doesnt want to or they dont have the coin or enrollment to fund it.

LS is expensive to provide services for a very small group of students. Someone has to pay for it, LS would greatly increase in lower tier ISs if parents were willing.able to incur the cost. Average value of a tuition fee waiver is $10K, the low end average cost of an IT is $30K, assuming 80% of operational costs is staffing. So 80% of the tuition/fee value is $8K and that 80% of the staffing cost is the IT so $1600 is support and administration and the remaining $8,400 is the IT. Add the $1600 and the LS IT salary together and you have $31,600 for the cost of educating a parents child, thats a very significant increase in costs, and thats before resource and operations costs, thats just the staffing. Someones got to pay it, ISs arent going to out of the goodness of their hearts. The expats on multinational expat packages will just attend the upper tier ISs with already established programs.

LS is not a fact in IE, its more prevalent at upper tier ISs, but they represent a very small portion of ISs. At the lower tier ISs you either have name only programs (we have an LS IT, so we have an LS program) that you wouldnt recognize as LS (because the program is essentially an IT functioning as a TA assigned to SEN students) or the IS is predominately host nationals, meaning its a private/independent DS using "international" as a marketing strategy, as such students with LS needs have specialized municipal DSs with compliant service providing programs. Host national parents send their children to ISs to give their children an advantage in gaining admissions to overseas tertiary institutions. Students with higher then very mild needs arent likely to be successful at those competitive Unis, why spend the coin to receive under resourced and substandard services compared to what the municipal system will provide for free.
wrldtrvlr123
Posts: 1173
Joined: Sat Feb 06, 2010 10:59 am
Location: Japan

Re: Schools contacting you to set up interviews before a SA

Post by wrldtrvlr123 »

reisgio wrote:
> Getting back to the original subject, when I got contacted by a school
> before a fair it was a school I had no interest in. I usually did give them
> the courtesy of meeting with them pre-fair if I had the time, but if it was
> a ME school I would say that I had no interest and not even waste my time.
> If someone is rushing at you, even if you are amazing, you probably should
> figure he or she is desperate to land you before you see your other
> options. My early suiters hailed from Africa, China (turned down), Dubai
> (turned down), UAE (turned down), and Korea if I recall completely. I
> enjoyed the pre-fair interviews with the Africa and Korea recruiters, and
> they got me in the zone for the my serious interviews at the fair with my
> target schools - interviews I completely aced and which ultimately turned
> into three job offers - none of which I took, but that is another story...
>
> Also, PsyGuy, thanks so much for mentioning me in the same sentence as a
> past valuable contributor to the forum. I am honored, and of course, for
> those enterprising forum searchers, you will find that I created my own yin
> to Ichiro's yang with an eponymous end-of-fair note to the wayward
> recruiter who didn't have his priorities straight because, recruiters,
> don't play with me if you don't want to get played with!
------------------------------
I'd forgotten exactly what your namesake consisted of and went back and had a look. LOL. If it made you feel better then obviously it was your right to go out anyway you chose. I try and resist the urge to give people both barrels (even if they deserve it) and go with the philosophy that living well is the best revenge.

Since things had actually worked out quite well for you, you could have achieved basically the same result by leaving a professionally worded note thanking them for their time (but with the obvious punchline that fortuitously you had just landed your dream gig in Switzerland). Maybe it's just me but with my luck, I just know that dropping a poison pen reisgio on some deserving recruiter would somehow come back and bite me in the ass down the road.

But it is definitely one way to go and adds some more spice and lore to the forum. Speaking of which, does anyone remember Captain Underpants? I wonder how he and Mrs. Underpants are doing.
PsyGuy
Posts: 10789
Joined: Wed Oct 12, 2011 9:51 am
Location: Northern Europe

Discussion

Post by PsyGuy »

The Reisgio effect is a class of phenomenon that describes the correlation between IS/leadership quality and various unrelated co-variates. The classic defining description being the intensity of an ISs Halloween celebration and its inverse relationship to quality of work life (the more importance on the ISs Halloween ., the worse the work experience).

@reisgio

Concur with @WT123, fairs are as much about networking than they are job searches. Poison a well and you never know where that water may end up or go. You may never work or want to work for that recruiter regardless of where they go. However, I like to live vicariously though the retaliation of others, especially with a recruiter who so obviously deserves it (not that it will make a difference, leadership generally ignores anything and everything that doesnt fit to their deluded paradigm).

@WT123

I still reference Captain Underpants when addressing inquires of virtual interviews. I believe they are in the middle of contract in S.A./L.A.
reisgio
Posts: 206
Joined: Sat Oct 18, 2014 10:17 am

Re: Schools contacting you to set up interviews before a SA

Post by reisgio »

As long as everybody reading this forum never looks at Halloween the same way again, I have done my job.

In terms of poisoning the well for the future, there is always that risk, and only time will tell. Luckily, I am set for now, but once I feel the itch again we will see. For the time being, I will live vicariously though all of the current job seekers/recruiters posting here.

Good luck to all forum friends in 2016!
jennifermd25
Posts: 6
Joined: Mon Dec 21, 2015 2:19 pm

Re: Schools contacting you to set up interviews before a SA

Post by jennifermd25 »

Walter wrote:
> Quite right too. Lots of interest in Learning Support - at all levels - in
> international schools. Look up "Next Frontier - Inclusion", which
> is being driven by Bill and Ochan Powell. They have conferences around the
> world for international school LS teachers, and they are sell outs. This is
> a really good field to get into as a teacher!

@walter, @psyguy, others who have replied,

Thanks for all of the responses. I've joined Search and Teach Away as well as CIS. I will also look into ISS. I've directly emailed to postings in Germany, Netherlands, Korea and Italy. Not sure if I will hear back. From what I have heard from others it seems like you just have to go to the London or BKK fairs to make any connections :( Since I have no international experience I guess I'm at the bottom of the pile despite my experience/education level. However, I will keep trying! I am completely open to Eastern Europe as well! Looking at the salaries, I am kind of shocked at how much less they pay than my current public school position in CA and wonder if anyone can live off of 43K with 30-40% tax rate and still manage to save or travel around! I see that the schools in places like Korea seem to offer a lot more money and provide more of an opportunity to save. I'm going to the SF fair to "practice" next weekend and maybe make some contacts. I'm not really into the business-like mentality of "selling yourself" so this will take some practice for me. Thanks for all of the advice!
PsyGuy
Posts: 10789
Joined: Wed Oct 12, 2011 9:51 am
Location: Northern Europe

Reply

Post by PsyGuy »

@jennifermd25

There is little justification to join both SA and ISS. Fair attendance wouldnt likely change the attention you receive for the regions in mostly WE that you have focused on.

Yes you can live off a $40K salary even after taxes, you just wont be able to live as well. You wont have a huge home/residence, and will rely on municipal transportation. You wont have that competition with your neighbors to keep up.

SK offers more opportunity to save, but in some ways you can spend coin a lot faster. SK has a very strong culture of competition/'showing off', and keeping up with your coworkers, and social group. You can spend a lot of coin in SK if you want to play in those social circles.
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