The International Schools Review Forum

Hello everyone,

I am a licensed second year middle school counselor (not including my year of interning at an IB school). I am licensed for k-12 school counseling. My husband is licensed as well and has taught for 8 years. He is licensed in a couple of areas birth- k, family and consumer sciences (which includes early childhood education, career management, life skills, etc), and school administration. We also have 2 children. We are in the process of registering with Search (waiting for evaluations to be sent back in) and are contacting schools directly. Based on our experience, what do you think our chances are of getting hired? My husband would like to move directly into administration however, this is his first year of being a full time school administrator. I am also wondering if I should pursue an additional certification in psychology (I have a BA in psychology) to increase my marketability.

We are both employed in the States and we are not in a position where we fear for our jobs (at the moment) but we always planned to pursue jobs overseas. By registering with Search we would have the 3 year access to their database and we are concerned that maybe we should start until we have more years of experience in our certification areas. Any thoughts or insights anyone can offer would be helpful. We are open to going any country. We have a long list of schools in various countries whose websites we check frequently. Thanks in advance.

Thanks for the response PsyGuy. We are in our early 30s. You summed it up exactly: finding a vacancy for both of us when are each qualified in only one area may pose a problem. We are both considering getting another certification in order to broaden our possibilities. I'm not sure of the turnover of counselors at international schools but in the States people tend to stay for years. Vacancies are typically few and far between unless their are problems with the administration. Finding a school with an administrative vacancy and a counselor vacancy at the same time would be difficult. We were concerned about one of us accepting a position and the other not working for several reasons. If a position becomes available once we are overseas and we were able to get hired, then we would be a local hire.

...I nominate PsyGuy for internationalschoolsreview.com President :P :P :P

Don't you just love his advice?

Have a great weekend everyone!

I second that nomination Musings28. PsyGuy you are awesome and helpful to everyone who has questions. Thanks to all of you who have contributed over the years through asking and answering questions. Although this has been my first post, I have been reading this forum for a couple of years and it has been very helpful!

No I don't. Most of his advice is either incorrect or entirely based on his limited experience, and so coming from a misinformed perspective most of the time.

[quote="calciodirigore"]No I don't. Most of his advice is either incorrect or entirely based on his limited experience, and so coming from a misinformed perspective most of the time.[/quote]

True, true. I can't imagine people relying on the advice of ONE person in a largely anonymous public forum for a fairly big field as international education. Although it is made " small " by way of connections of heads, administrators, principals and such, in general, there are hundreds of international schools around the world, each with a different character, providing different situations for many individuals.

I was going to write a post defending Psyguy, but realised anyone capable of writing scuh logical, thoughtful contributions doesn't need me to defend him.

The last thing this site needs is less information and participation. Much of what is written is opinion, and it should be taken as such. That's a big part of the value, at least for me. I take it as such, and value the experience and input from all. I don't make up my mind based on one post, but try and read many and gain insight that I otherwise couldn't get anywhere else.

First, could we all please try to spell words correctly.


Second, my wife went to work overseas, Vietnam actually, with a lot of luggage/baggage, depending upon how you want to view it.

We left Search in Cambridge with no interested schools. On our own, we were able to sweep up 5 Skype interviews. We chose the school in Vietnam for many reasons but the most important for "savings potential". At least that is what we learned was the preferred jargon for a positive earnings:spending ratio.

In short I'd say go to Vietnam or some similar low-cost of living area. Also, I don't know if the school was tier 1 or 5 but it wasn't the best or the worst, in my opinion.

Now, the dirt. We have 3 children, one of us is certified with several countable years in public education but working outside of education for the past 2 years. The other was trained as a teacher in college but never received a certification until right before we moved to Vietnam. We were hired and repeatedly pushed to sign the contracts. Which of course, we learned, were not real contracts at all because the real ones are actually signed at the school.

As you can see, we not only were hired but our children and experience did not seem to be a concern. I knew of many other people at this school who were either not certified or did not teach in their field of certification but were still "teachers".

Truthfully, when we return to teaching overseas, we will have 2 instead of 3 children, many more years of credible service, and seeking only tier 1 schools. Of course we will have patience in our search.

Good luck.

PS If you have IB experience, then possibly look at schools that are not IB accredited but are trying and waive that experience like a huge flag!!

PSS If you are hired by a school that is not WASC accredited and you want to claim those years as experience if/when you return to teach in the states, you probably won't receive credit for them. Just FYI.

I take it that schools have a rating system, internationally. The term Tier 1 or 2 is often used on this site. Can anyone explain the meaning and criteria? Thanks in advance :)

No, there is no formal system for ranking schools. People use tiers as a short hand for perceived quality of schools, the benefits they offer, and perhaps the perceived caliber of the students. You're not going to find a clear consensus regarding what tiers schools are from person to person.

There are some threads where people have explained this idea more thoroughly and you may find it worth your time to read through it. But you are not missing out on a ranking system that everyone else knows about.