The International Schools Review Forum

I am a new poster/long time lurker who always enjoys the feedback people get when they post and ask for marketability/chances input. I would love some input on my husband and I's info.

I used the PsyGuy Applicant Scoring metric to organize my info.

1. Experience: 3.5 years total; 1 year overseas in South Korea
2. Degrees: Each have M.E.D. and will be finished with Ed.S. in August
3. Cross-Certifications: Both certified K-12 SPED and K-8 Elem/Middle. Mr.SN also certified 5-12 Math and 7-12 Biology
4. Curriculum Exp.: Cambridge (Korea) and Common Core aligned (USA)
5. Logistics: Married couple with no dependents (but one dog who would be coming)
6. International Exp.: 1 year (1 year contract with references stating we fulfilled the contract)
7. Leadership Exp.: nothing to write home about
8. Extra Curricular: Mr. SN coaches wrestling now. I work with an after school tutoring/outreach program for at-risk students.
9. Special Populations: Both qualified and experienced; this is my top choice and Mr. SN is flexible
10. Special Skill Set: Mr. SN's masters in is Educational Technology; I have completed many training workshops in SPED strategies (all with certificates)

Based on PsyGuy's rating scale (which I think/hope is a very useful reference) we aren't rating too poorly and cover most areas. I was interested to see if this would likely be enough to get interest from strong schools. We really like our jobs in the States now, but we miss the excitement, atmosphere, and, yes, money of being international. We aren't willing to go to just any school though. Our first choice is the ME followed by SE Asia or China.

Feedback would be much appreciated!

Hi. You shouldn't encourage him (j/k. sort of).

You should be fairly competitive. Especially as you are open to the Middle East and China. Beijing and Shanghai alone could be very fertile ground for you and each have a few top notch schools. Now if you can get yourselves into one of the better schools there or the ME, you will be in a very good position for the near future and for prospective moves down the road.

What area is most of your collective experience in? If you have the SPED experience and your husband has the experience to go along with the math and science certs then that would likely raise your desirability as candidates to a certain extent.

If you are a SPED and elementary teaching couple with no dependents (school won't care about the dog since no visa/schooling would be required and they likely won't pay for transport anyway) that would still be a decent to good position to be in. Even a SPED/SPED combination could be workable if a large enough school has openings in SPED at different levels within the school (which would certainly not be unheard of).

So, all in all I would be cautiously optimistic for your chances of getting interviews for some good to great schools, should they have openings that are a match.

Thanks for the reply!

The bulk of my experience is in SPED with some elementary during our time in SK. Mr.SN teaches math and SPED in HS now and has taught elementary.