American School of Dubai

The American School of Dubai is an independent, coeducational day school for students from Pre-K to Grade 12. It is located in a suburb of Dubai approximately 15 minutes from the business center of Dubai. They use a US based curriculum. The school has close to 1,000 students from the US and 44 other countries. 75% of the students are from North America. The school year is 180 days and runs from 8:00 – 3:00 for all students except Kindergarten. ASD is accredited by Middle States .The average class has 18-24 students. The student/teacher ratio is 11:1.

There are 93 teachers. The majority of teachers are from North America. The average length of stay is eight years.

Mission and Beliefs
ASD believes that education is shared between parents, faculty, administration, students and the school community. The school sees its role as that of challenging students to become “…intellectually adept, thoughtful and ethical contributors to a global society.”

Facilities
The campus is located on 8 acres of land. The school has three main buildings, two pre-K villas, a two-story library, and elementary art center, and two gyms. There are 69 classrooms. There are four science labs, four computer labs, a large library, and extensive athletic facilities.

Curriculum
The school uses a standards-based curriculum. It is a college preparatory school. ASD has a rigorous academic program. Elementary students have specialized instruction in Arabic, art, computer, music, library, and physical education. There are also special needs classes in math and reading, along with assistance for mild learning disabilities. The school offers AP courses. World languages include French and Spanish.

Extra Curricular Activities
There are extensive extra-curricular activities offered at all grade levels including athletics and the arts and sciences. Older students may participate in the Eastern Mediterranean Activities Conference. The EMAC includes athletics and the fine arts. Students may travel to other countries to participate in these activities

Technology
Technology is integrated throughout the curriculum. All classrooms are networked. Computer instruction is provided at all grade levels. There are over 500 computers in the school. The school uses a traditional approach to computers with the usual computer curriculum – typing, word processing, computer graphics, use of email and the internet, etc.

Professional Development
ASD has a webpage with a very extensive explanation of their PD program. I strongly suggest that you read it.

There are seven types of professional development: Professional development funds (teachers are given up to $1,200 per year for PD); Near East South Asia Funds; Targeted conferences; Professional development days; Job embedded professional development; Buffalo State; New teacher orientation

Employment
ASD is looking for teachers that have the following traits:
Preferably a US or Canadian teaching certificate
Recent teaching experience in an American or Canadian school
Experience in the teaching position preferred
Experience in coaching or supervision of extra-curricular activities

ASD attends Iowa, Search and ISS fairs. An interview at one of the fairs is required for employment.

Salary and Benefits
The minimum starting salary is USD$ 35,000 and the maximum starting salary is USD$ 41,500. The maximum salary on scale is USD$ 48,700

One step on scale for each two years of prior experience up to initial step 5 on schedule.

Benefits are:

• The school offers a cost of living allowance adjusted yearly. This years allowance is between $8,404-$9,878 for a single teacher. This amount is paid in Dirhams.
• Professional Development up to $1,200 per year.
• Dependent tuition free for up to two children
• Retirement is 18.2% of base salary is employee contributes 11.2%
• Life Insurance
• Medical Insurance -school pays 80%, employee pays 20%
• Dental – same as above
• Long term disability
• Housing allowance or housing is provided
• A settling in allowance of $8000 – 10,000 paid in Dirhams
• Transportation
• Initial airfare from home of record. At end of second year, home leave is paid.
• Shipping – initial amount of 800 pounds of air freight; final amount up to 1,200 pounds
• Immunizations, initial medical, and visa costs are paid for.
• Taxes – no local taxes

About Dubai
Dubai is one of the seven emirates of the United Arab Emirates. It has the largest population of all of them (approximately one million). The city of Dubai is the capital of the emirate that has the same name. Abu Dhabi, Sharjah and the Sultanate of Oman border Dubai.

The climate of Dubai is sub-tropical. The best months in Dubai are between November and March when the weather is warm and sunny, but not overly hot.

Dubai has a number of interesting attractions for visitors. Among these are: the archaeological sites of Ghusals, Al Sufooh and Jumeirah; the Bedouin Village; the Dubai Museum; the Dubai World Trade Center; the Gold Souk; the Grand Mosque’ the heritage and diving village in Shindagah; and the Jumeirah Mosque.

Expats are allowed to practice their own religion in the UAE as long as they don’t proselytize. Alcohol is served in hotels, restaurants and bars. The dress code is liberal.

Dubai is unique among the members of the UAE in that most of its income comes from tourism rather than from oil. Oil revenues are only 6% of the emirate’s income.

Hong Kong Academy was founded in 2000. It provides education services for students from Pre-K through Grade 10 with plans to add two more grades in the next two years. It is an independent, non-profit, co-educational day school. HKA is accredited by WASC and has authorization for using the PYP from the IBO.

The school has a low student/teacher ratio and classes are kept to a maximum of 18 in the Primary School. Students are predominantly expatriates.

Mission
The mission of HKA is to provide an excellent international education by nurturing and developing students to think critically, be ethical and work to develop themselves as individuals as well as members of the global community.

Facilities
HKA is located on Hong Kong island on the campus of the former Lingnan College. The school has an indoor sports hall, an art room, a library, computer and science labs. HKA is in the process of finding a new location for a new purpose built school.

Extra Curricular Activities
The school has a wide variety of after school activities. Some of these activities include: arts and crafts, chess, choir, dance, soccer, tennis, cricket, golf and more.

Curriculum
HKA uses an international curriculum that draws from the best teaching practices around the world. Teachers use an inquiry based approach. The Middle/High School employs a traditional specialist based approach with block scheduling, electives, and a lap top program. The Primary School uses the PYP, and the Middle/High School has candidate status for the MYP and IB Diploma.

Technology
HKA is heavily invested in using technology and integrating it throughout the curriculum. It has a one-to-one laptop program for students from Grade 6 and up. All teachers who work with students from grades 6-9 also have Macbooks. Students from fifth grade through eighth grade have electronic portfolios and the school is developing digital portfolios for students in the lower grades as well. HKA has a large number of Mac laptops and has some wireless capabilities on the campus. Every classroom has ceiling mounted LCD projectors as well as desktop computers.

Professional Development
HKA is committed to professional development. It uses a variety of approaches to PD including inservice, professional conferences, and visiting consultants. In addition to school planned PD, teachers are given individual professional development allowances. The school closes early every Wednesday for PD sessions that include team planning. Additionally, HKA has a partnership with Lehigh University that provides onsite graduate courses for teachers. This is a school that obviously places a high value on professional development.

Employment
This is a school that is not afraid to be quite upfront about the pay scale, benefits, and expectations for teachers. HKA is looking for teachers that are certified in their home country, are committed to professional development, have at least two years of experience, and are innovative.

The school lists openings on its website. Applications are taken throughout the year. HKA attends the main recruitment fairs although the majority of its teachers are hired at fairs in Asia and North America.

Interested teachers can send a letter of interest, a resume, and supporting documentation such as a statement of philosophy and letters of recommendation along with a recent photo and send it to:
Dr. Andy Page-Smith, Director
by e-mail to recruitment@hkacademy.edu.hk or
fax to (852) 2891-4461

The school has a salary schedule online. Salaries run from a low of USD 32,000 for beginning teachers to a high of USD 62,000. Teachers have to pay taxes on their salaries; these can run from 9-12% of your income.

Benefits include: a housing allowance, economy airfare at beginning and end of contract, economy airfare to home of record for summer leave, matching 10% retirement contribution, 10 sick days per year, international medical and hospitalization insurance, workers compensation, free tuition for dependents, work and residency visas, relocation allowance of HK$ 6,000 per single and HK$ 10,000 per couple, annual professional development allowance of HK$ 8,500 that can be accumulated for up to three years, free Mandarin lessons, shipping allowance of HK$ 8,000, a maximum of five days of leave to attend recruiting fairs, bereavement leave, and personal leave.

Once I took a look at this school’s website and what they have to offer in terms of curriculum, salary, benefits and an environment that sounds welcoming to teachers, I wished that I was younger and still looking for employment.

Finding a position in an international school is generally more difficult than getting a job teaching English. The overseas teaching field is highly competitive. Most schools attend one of the main hiring fairs which are held several times a year. You can expect to need to have at least two years of experience and a current teaching credential. Many schools have IB programs and want IB experience. Some schools only hire Americans, others only British or Australian, but generally you will find a mix of nationalities in international schools especially in the large ones like Jakarta International School, Singapore American School, or the International School of Bangkok.

The main teaching fairs are run by International Schools Services, Search Associates, the Council of International Schools, and Northern Iowa. I only have experience with ISS and at that I only attended one fair in 1989. Fairs are usually quite crowded; teaching couples have an edge generally on single teachers as they can split up and cover twice the ground. Single parents are at an extreme disadvantage when looking for jobs overseas. Even singles without children are not hired by some schools. A lot of this has to do with housing considerations. You can find specific information on each of the organizations mentioned above on their web sites along with online forms that you can fill out or download. One other site that you may want to consult in your search for teaching positions is TIE – The International Educator. TIE publishes a newspaper that has job listings as well as articles about teaching overseas. You can also use their online services.

Once you have some experience teaching in an international school, you enter into a rather small world and you have a good chance (if you’re good at your job and have had good experiences with your principal and/or superintendent/director) of getting a job without attending a fair. I’ve obtained my last two positions this way: once by having a former principal hire me directly, and the second time by having him recommend me for another job. This saves you the considerable expense of attending a fair, not to mention the hassle and stress that goes along with these cattle markets.

How much do overseas’ jobs pay?

Salaries vary widely in overseas’ schools. Generally teaching English pays considerably less than working in an international school. English positions in Bangkok run from around 20,000 baht per month to 50,000. At the current exchange rate of about 40 baht per U.S. dollar, that means you would be making from between $500 to $1250 per month. Not a whole lot of money. As I mentioned before, jobs in Taiwan, Korea and Japan pay more.

International school positions pay more, but there is a wide range in salaries depending on experience and location. Generally the more favorable the location, the lower the salary. Schools in South America and Africa usually don’t pay as well as schools in the Middle East. The small ISS or company schools in remote locations usually pay quite well and have some nice travel benefits. School ads in the ISS and TIE newspapers often have salary ranges listed. In some countries you have to pay local taxes on your salary; this is often picked up by the school, but occasionally it isn’t. Americans teaching overseas don’t have to pay taxes on the salary that they earn outside of the country. A nice overseas salary would be something in the mid 40s range, tax-free of course.

Housing and other Perks

Housing is a big issue for overseas’ teaching. Housing is usually provided or at least compensated for. I have lived in small bachelor type apartments, ranch style type houses that you would find in a US suburb, a really dingy flat in Pakistan and then in a much nicer three bedroom one while working at the same school. One of the most common complaints from teachers is about their housing.
Some schools offer free cars, some will provide interest free loans if you want to purchase a car, while others have no transportation allowance included. At LAS, we were provided a car for $50 a month which went for service, insurance and fuel costs. Health insurance is usually provided for, and some schools offer retirement benefits while many don’t.

Are there positions in developed countries or only in remote or “dangerous” locations?

There are international schools just about everywhere in the world. All of the major capitals of the world have international schools and most of them are quite large. Jakarta International School, for instance, has several thousand students and hundreds of teachers. My current school has 53 students and eight teachers. As I mentioned above, some of the remote schools pay quite well in order to attract teachers. Schools in Pakistan pay well because of the problems of attracting teachers to a country that is considered by many to be dangerous, although this is far from true.

What is it like teaching overseas?

That varies from place to place. Big high-powered schools in major capitals with a student body whose parents include CEO’s and diplomats tends to be fairly stressful from what I have heard, but working in small schools can be just as stressful because of close parent contact and high expectations and demands. I’ve worked in a middle-sized school and three small schools, and I’ve enjoyed both experiences. My own preferences led me not to want to work in the larger schools, but I know teachers who have spent decades working in large schools and love it. There are certainly many more opportunities for entertainment, night life and shopping when you live in a large city.

Generally you can expect to have many of the same problems that you would have in a school in the States with homework, parents and administrators. You can also expect not to have to worry about gang violence, crazed people coming in off the street to shoot up the school, and all the other traumas of urban existence in the U.S. Some schools will have a large population of non-English speaking students. Drug problems may exist in larger schools, but are generally absent in the smaller schools.

Some schools follow a U.S. curriculum, others have an international one, and still others have a mix. Lahore American School followed a U.S. curriculum even though by the time that I left the school our student population was almost entirely made up of wealthy Pakistani students.

Teaching overseas offers a lot of opportunities for travel. For example, while I was teaching in Lahore, I would go back and forth to Bali on vacation and usually transited in Bangkok which I really enjoyed. Many of the teachers there explored the incredible Pakistan countryside and also vacationed in places like Malaysia, Burma, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam which were all quite accessible from Lahore except during the war in Afghanistan.

Teaching overseas can be a great life.

It’s that time of the year again – the international teacher recruiting fairs are just around the corner. Over the next week, I will be posting about the main recruiting organizations around the world. The first that I will discuss is ISS.

International Schools Services(ISS) was founded in 1955 and has been a key player in developing the overseas community in to what it is today. In addition to holding their well-known and well-attended recruiting fairs (known as IRCs – International Recruitment Centers), ISS manages a number of small international schools and they provide a variety of services for the international community. ISS will host four IRCs this year (the first starts on January 5th in Bangkok). ISS Registration ends this week, so if you’re interested you better get a move on it.

International Recruitment Centers

The Bangkok IRC is the first and is the most convenient for teachers who are already working overseas and don’t want to make the long trip back to the States for the four days of the conference. The second IRC will be held in Boston from February 7-11. The third IRC will be held in Philadelphia and will be a joint affair with CIS. The dates for this IRC are February 15-18. The final IRC will be held in Fairfax, Virginia from June 11-13. This conference is for schools filling new positions or replacing teachers who have suddenly decided to leave their positions.

If you want to attend an IRC you need to have a file already established with ISS. Once you do that (more down below on this process), you can register to attend an IRC. There is a U.S. $290 fee for registering for an IRC. This is in addition to the $185 that you need to pay to establish a file with ISS.

Attending an IRC does not guarantee that you will land a teaching position – about 50% of those who attend accept positions – but it’s a good start. I attended one IRC many years ago in Los Angeles. It was extremely stressful, I only ended up with a few interviews, and I was not offered a position at the schools that I interviewed with at that time. ISS did offer me a position at one of their schools later in the year. That’s how I got started in the international teaching field. More about the IRCs in a few days.

The Professional File

If you intend on establishing a professional file with ISS, be aware that it is a rather lengthy process so you need to know what documents are required, when they need to be submitted, and what the process is like.

Before you being this lengthy process, you should make sure that you meet the ISS requirements to qualify as a candidate. These are:

1) Hold at least a Bachelor’s degree from an accredited university or college; 2) Have at least two years experience as a full-time teacher; 3) Hold an educational certificate from the department of education in your state or province; 4) Are planning on coming overseas alone or have a spouse that will also be looking for employment; 5) Are willing to commit to a two year contract; 6) Are willing to consider positions in at least two large continental areas.

You apply online. You may be timed out during this process if you have a slow internet connection, so you should have everything already completed and ready to cut and paste. This will save you an incredible amount of stress. Once you begin the application process online, you will have 90 days to complete it. So you can save and come back later to edit it if you need to. This is very important for those of us who take our time with these types of documents. Once you submit your application to ISS, you will no longer be able to edit it.

You will be required to write two narratives as part of your application. For teaching candidates the tropics are: 1) Please write a statement describing the personal and professional qualifications and experience you have that will enable you to be successful in an international school overseas. (200-400 words – not to exceed one page); 2) What makes you an outstanding educator? Please refer to a lesson you have taught and/or describe specific achievements of your students during the past year. (200-400 words – not to exceed one page)

Within two weeks of submitting your application, you will need to have: 1) an official transcript confirming your highest degree. This needs to be sent to ISS directly from your university conferring the degree; 2) Copies of your educational credentials – you can send copies via fax/email or regular mail; 3) References from your supervisors covering the last seven years. It is required that you send confidential references submitted directly by your supervisor on school letterhead (this may be difficult for some if you have lost track of your last supervisor.

There is an $185 fee for file establishment. You will not be charged a placement fee if you secure employment through a recruiting fair.

Once all this is done, you will be notified via email within two weeks of ISS receiving your application. Once this occurs, you can review positions for recruitment online, receive registration details for IRCs, received personal email notifications of positions listed for recruitment fairs for which you qualify, and receive complimentary copies of the ISS newspaper, NewsLinks.

Well, that’s a fair amount of information. You need to have all the required documents on time, so if you are planning on attending a fair later this year, you should get down to work right now. Good luck with job hunting! And if you want some great help in choosing a school, take a look at my new eBook – The International Teacher. You’ll find 155 international schools reviewed including most of the schools that will be attending the IRCs.

Sinarmas World Academy was founded in July 2008. It provides educational services for students from Pre-K through Grade 12. SWA is a candidate for all three IB programs. SWA is recognized by the Indonesian government as an international school.

Mission
The mission of SWA is to become a leader in PK-12 education and to enable their students to develop their full potential and become lifelong learners who are responsible global citizens.

Facilities
The school has a new landscaped campus, about 20 km west of Jakarta, with impressive facilities that include: a performing arts and library/media center that holds a theater, performing arts studios, an exhibition gallery, a library/media center, administrative offices and restaurants, shops and services mall; an art and technology center; and a sports and aquatics center that includes gymnasiums, fitness center, pools, basketball courts and sports field.

Curriculum
Sinarmas has a traditional academic structure with elementary covering preschool through grade 6, middle school from grade 7 though grade 9, and high school from grade 10-12. SWA is a candidate school for all three IB programs – PYP, MYP and IB.The school believes in an integrated, holistic, inquiry based educational program, and they feel that the IB programs offer students that educational experience.

English is the main language at SWA, but Indonesian and Mandarin area also spoken.

Extra Curricular Activities
SWA has a full extracurricular program. Activities take place at lunch, after school or on weekends. SWA sees these activities as working towards developing balanced students who can engage in activities that allow them to develop new skills and attitudes. Some elementary activities include: lunchtime sports, choir, instrumental classes, band, swimming, and social activities. Examples of middle and high school activities include: intermural and intramural sports, band, a variety of clubs, Model United Nations, Habitat for Humanity, overseas study trips, dances, fitness activities, movie nights and more.

Technology
SWA is a strong on using technology as a key component of education. The school has wireless mobile technology and students in Grades5-12 are provided with Macbook laptop computers. ICT is considered a core literacy and is integrated throughout the program.

Professional Development
No information is available.

Employment
SWA wants teachers that are dynamic, committed and qualified. As SWA is an IB candidate school, they are looking for teachers with IB experience or international experience. Teachers need to have a degree in education or subject specialization. The school lists vacancies online.

Teachers who are interested in positions should send a 1-page cover letter and a CV to Saharani Andriana, Human Resources Manager at hrd@swa-jkt.com.

No information is available on salaries or benefits.