Job Discussion Forums

[ladymadonna]

Hello all - this school has an ad on the jobs board. It appears they changed their name from "Mandalay Academy." They don't appear to have a website. Anyone know of this school?

Thanks.

[bentanddisfunctional]

Scammers.

Beware

[Rousseau Redhawk]

http://www.aismyanmar.com/ is the website, Not sure why "bentanddisfunctional" considers them scammers....

[pate]

This school requires visa runs and associates itself with the American Montessori Society who, if you call to verify as I did, have no record of them. There are no Montessori schools connected with the AMS in Burma!

[Rousseau Redhawk]

Well, it's two years old..."Ayeyarwaddy International School was founded in 2011 by U Aung Ko Latt, a local entrepreneur whose dream was to bring to Mandalay an exceptional school which would prepare local, national, and international students for university life through an academic program using English as the language of instruction. With the financial support of the Liu family (U Liu You Guang, Daw Gao Cai Mei, and their son David), construction of the main campus was completed in early 2012, and our first full academic year began in May of that same year with an enrollment of just over 400 students."

I doubt that its procedures are set in stone. I notice it has applied for accreditation:
"WASC accreditation is very important to our school. If we earn full accreditation, it tells universities in the United States and elsewhere that our school meets the same high standards as any school in the USA or in the international community. On a practical level, WASC accreditation means that our students can be admitted into top universities around the world.

In December of 2012, our school had its initial visit by a WASC (Western Association of Schools and Colleges) accreditation committee. The purpose of their visit was to determine whether or not our school was developed enough to move forward with the WASC accreditation process. They reviewed every aspect of our program: curriculum, textbooks, lesson plans, faculty, leadership, finances, and several of the policies and plans created by the principal both before and during the first year of operation. The committee members wrote a private report about their visit, which they sent directly to the main office in California. The main office had the task of studying the report and making one of the following decisions:

1. No WASC affiliation: This means that we are so far off the mark in terms of quality that we would have to wait a full year before applying again, and we would only be admitted if we made substantial changes to our program.

2. Some form of probationary affiliation: This means that we have some major weaknesses that we would have to improve on in a specified period of time before the committee would consider us for candidacy status.

3. Candidacy status: This means that we have a program which we still need to improve upon but which has sufficient quality to bring us immediately into the WASC family. Candidacy status also means that we are in a position to gain full accreditation status by following the WASC guidelines during our candidacy period.

Obviously, we were hoping for the third decision . . . and that's just what we got. As of March 2013, Ayeyarwaddy International School is officially a Candidate for WASC Accreditation!

Although this is certainly a reason to celebrate, what the candidacy means is that we still have a lot of work ahead of us. Over the next few years, our community of teachers, parents, and staff will have to work together towards a common goal: full accreditation. We will form various committees, make program changes as necessary, and host WASC representatives at pre-scheduled times in order to make sure that we meet all of the WASC criteria for full accreditation. There's a lot of work ahead for all of us, but I am confident that we will meet, or exceed, all WASC requirements necessary to move us to the final stage: full accreditation.

====== Which seems like pretty honest language for a two year old school to me, but up to you as to what you think after reviewing the website. I don't think we have any first hand reports from anyone at the school now, which would be interesting....

[Dr. Gary Robson]

As the principal of AIS (Ayeyarwaddy International School), I think that I can provide the "firsthand report" that Rousseau Redhawk mentioned.

* Lady Madonna: Regarding our name, I used "Mandalay Academy" in our earliest ads simply because our school didn't have a name yet. We later chose our name through a community-wide contest, and we will forever be called AIS.

* Pate: Since March of 2013, our preschool teachers have been going through Montessori teacher certification training run by The Center for Guided Montessori Studies. Their address is 9650 Strickland Rd, Raleigh, NC 27615. You can reach their directors - either Mr. Marc Seldin or Ms. Kitty Bravo - through their program number: 1-888-344-7897. Their certification program is IMC (International Montessori Council) approved. In addition to certifying our own instructors, our goal is to become an approved training center so that we can help to provide certified Montessori teachers throughout Myanmar.

In short, we are a real international school. We recently finished our first year (May to February, based on the Myanmar calendar) and are just about to begin our second year. For this year, we're getting a 65% enrollment increase. This says that we're doing something right.

One of the "right" things we definitely did pertains to accreditation. After being open for a single semester, we went through the intial accreditation process with WASC (Western Association of Schools and Colleges - the organization responsible for the west coast of the US and all of the Asia/Pacific region). The result is that we now have WASC Candidacy status and are working towards full accreditation, which we plan to have within 3 years (the accreditation process takes time).

Please visit our website - www.aismyanmar.com - to learn the latest about our program.