Job Discussion Forums

[Xenophobe]

If you have any thoughts about applying here I would wait a while. It would be difficult for you to talk to foreign teaching staff that'has been there awhile because they were all fired, this past May, including some that had been there for four years. They requested pay parity with the other Dominican administered schools and that was their answer.

As it stands the school is in breach of contract because it gave three weeks notice of job termination, rather than the contractually stipulated three months. The reason given is that the school could not afford to pay any of the teachers. Enrolment has salso suffered severely as a result of the school administration being less than honest with the parents over this entire matter. It has created a lot of hard feelings that may take some time to get over.

The pay is 59 000 a month for about 60 - 70 hours work a week (40 in school and the rest at home) because the amount of paperwork is like nothing any professional teacher has ever experienced (unless you were a principal) in a Western school. The expectations of the teachers are high and the financial renumerations aren't great. You are supposedly allowed 8 sick days a year, but don't count on them being taken without a lot of complaining. Working with kids it's inevitable you get most of the nasties going around

The one bright ray is that the administration has been replaced, but as I said previously it is going to take a lot tof time and good PR to repair the damage done to the school over the past three years. The teachers, students and parents had very little faith and respect for thge way things were run, perhaps things will change for the better.