The more important number than salary will be savings potential. Search Associates will generally list how much teachers can save per year along with the salary range. As mentioned before, you also want to consider the value of the total package; if you make 40K per year in the U.S. but have to pay rent/a mortgage and some variety of federal and state taxes, then your 33K tax-free salary with provided housing means you will end up netting more money with a lower salary. While savings potential is self-reported by schools, it should give you a rough idea of how much money you will be able to save per year after living expenses and with some allowances for travel. Your financial mileage will vary depending on your spouse's work plans, your salary, and your family's spending habits, but the number provided on Search will typically give you a more useful estimate of net income than the salary figure alone.

Thames Pirate also forgot about the Search fair in Cambridge, MA. It's the third (and last chronologically) large Search fair, and is more focused on experienced teachers who are looking for their first international position, though experienced international teachers will be there as well. New teachers looking for intern positions will also be in attendance. If you activate your Search account earlier rather than later, this will likely be the fair your associate steers you towards.

@wilcoman

Search references are confidential; you don't get to see them.

Never had a problem buying or downloading books from Amazon for either Kindle or iPad when abroad. As previously stated, if your account is connected to a domestic billing address with a domestic credit card, it shouldn't matter where you are internationally when you buy books.

The best date option I have ever had as far as deciding to renew a contract was early January, which gave teachers the option to try their luck at a Bangkok fair before committing to staying or leaving. I have also worked at a school that tended to be more flexible with teachers who had worked there longer (6+ years), giving them a bit more time to recruit or decide whether or not to renew. I also recognize that these are the exceptions though, and that most schools generally will ask for teachers to make a renewal decision by early December at the latest.

I can speak for Search Associates references, but not for ISS. For an initial application for Search, they will generally ask for 5 references: 3 supervisory and 2 parent references. You can replace parent references with supervisory ones, but you will need at least 3 supervisors. If you reactivate your account for a later job search, the reference numbers go down - I only needed 2 supervisors to get my account restarted, but my wife (new to Search) had to get 5 total. You do have a good amount of flexibility in the supervisor refs: you can use a director, principal, assistant principal, dept. head/team lead, an athletic/activities director (if you coach), a curriculum coordinator/instructional coach/specialist, etc. to get to 3 supervisors, but your principal or director has to be one of them for Search to open your application.

As far as your reasons for leaving, your truthful answer seems reasonable. The transitory nature of international teaching means that people are always changing locations for a variety of reasons. Most reasons for leaving I've heard people give seem to boil down to some variation of "It's time to move on for new professional challenges/change of scenery/new opportunities with X curriculum." As long as you aren't trashing your current employers to a prospective employer, the interviewers I've dealt with have been pretty understanding with some variation on the above.

School #2, especially if it is the assisted school at post for the Office of Overseas Schools. You will be more likely to have an actual international school experience, as opposed to the Egyptian school. The 10% American student population probably consists of students who have both Egyptian and American passports.

Your resume looks exactly the same as mine when I started IT, if you swap public school for charter school. You will be a competitive teacher, but Europe may be a stretch without IB experience. There are schools in Latin America/China and Korea/the Middle East that will hire you now. It might be challenging to live in Latin America on one salary, but that depends a lot on your lifestyle and your individual financial goals.

I don't think that your "drawbacks" are really that negative. If you haven't had any problems during your long experience in urban public/charter schools, then it can demonstrate to schools that you don't have classroom management issues and can pretty much handle whatever gets thrown your way in an international classroom. Teachers who can handle their own business and don't need much support from admin have value.

Long time, first time. I am an experienced IT, but without IB experience (which I would like). I have a potential opportunity to teach TOK, in addition to normal courses in my subject area, but no others in the Diploma Program. How would subsequent schools/admin view this IB experience? Would I be at a disadvantage applying for an IBDP position in my subject area only having taught TOK and not SL/HL Subject?