The International Schools Review Forum

It appears that the majority of QSI schools are small and therefore a guidance counselor would be unnecessary. Are there large schools in the network that have positions for a 7-12th grade certified guidance counselor?
I would appreciate information from current QSI employees.
Thank you!!

Most of the QSI schools are too small for a full time guidance counselor. I currently teach half-time and mostly secondary counseling duties the other half of the day. I handle scheduling, credit requirements, transcripts, college counseling (most of my day), community service stuff, etc… Some schools do have full-time counselors. The ones that I can think of that have full-time counselors are Shekou, Almaty, Kiev and Bratislava (pretty sure about this one). Chengdu is getting really big very quickly and may need a full time counselor if they don’t already have one. Other than that I think it is part-time positions or even something the vice-principal (Director of Instruction in QSI talk) or someone else handles.

I would suggest you apply and see if they can plug you in somewhere. I don't know of any openings for counselors in my region but there may be somewhere else. All QSI employees had to submit their commitment or departure letters last Friday (admin by Nov 15). So, the personnel guy should know what is opening up.

I am also a counselor and my husband and I have applied to QSI and heard similar things. They have set up an interview date and have contacted all of our references.

Thanks Danda! I appreciate the feedback. Could you tell me how "flexible" QSI is with location requests for newbies? Is it majorly frowned upon if you make it known you don't want to work in a stan country?

Micki - keep us posted will you? I hope the interview goes well!

There is a hierarchy in QSI, where premium places like Italy, are saved as "reward" transfers. When you apply for a specific vacancy with QSI the announcement usually states where the exact location is, if you dont want a stan dont apply for those vacancies. If your applying for any open and suitable position, its not going to help you if you start getting picky over where you will or wont go, especially if the places your interested in are those premium locations. There arent many counselor positions especially at the smaller schools, and a fair number of the larger schools just happen to be in less desirable places.

If you really want to get a job with QSI, it's not terribly good to be picky about going to the -stan countries. The -stan countries, especially Kazakhstan (there are at least four schools there), are often the go-to countries for new QSI teachers. After putting in your time there, you can request to transfer elsewhere.

To my knowledge, only the bigger schools have counselors. That would be a handful of schools in the -stans, Chengdu and Shekou in China, Kyiv, and *possibly* Bratislava, but I'm not sure about that one.

Bratislava had a pseudo counselor when I was there

I have to ask, what do you mean by a Psedo-Counselor?

an ineffectual wanna-be

It means...teacher and-or counseling
Meaning, they do not have the funds (currently closing 5 schools) so they ask a counselor/teacher to double as a counselor/teacher.
The current Bratislava “counselor" is teaching science and cultural studies and counseling in her preps.

Gereja, what 5 schools is QSI closing? I've heard one, Brindisi, may be closing, but they're trying to save it. Any information on others that are closing?

Chongqing is closing at the end of the year. They almost closed in October, but closure in June is definite. The school director already left and other schools in China are scheduled to receive Chongqing's inventory.

Suzhou is *probably* closing at the end of the year. They haven't been able to compete with the other (enormous) schools in Suzhou (Singapore and Dulwich, I believe).

I'm not sure about the other closures.

What Severam noted, we've also heard Italy as well and the high school in Macedonia. The official word is supposedly coming soon. Loads going on with QSI especially, Shenzhen/Shekou.

@Gereja:

What's going down at the Shenzhen and Shekou schools?

I've copied from the Director's news letter sent out this week (it's a nightmare for parents and teachers with kids on multiple campuses, teacher housing and so on):

[quote]I[n case you missed it last week. Here is some background regarding our plans: For many years the school has been working hard to find a location to house all of our students under one roof. The Ministry of Education strongly supports this move, as it is a requirement that we house all of our students at one address. We have found our new home at the TCL International E City! TCL has built this “International E Cityâ€