Korean Job Discussion Forums

[crsandus]

So I just received a job offer from the Gangnam public schools and I need to make my decision by Wednesday. I've read some past threads about the Gangnam public school positions but they are a bit dated and I would like to know if anything significant has changed in the past two years that I should be aware of.

BACKGROUND:
Financially the move to Gangnam is a wash. I crunched the numbers and I *may* end up with about a million more at Gangnam (assuming no extra classes) than my current SMOE job in a year. I like my SMOE school and coteachers. I've had it nice but I feel the need to move on and start something new. I teach elementary.

I know about the housing money situation, the 25 classes, the "your principal is now your god" situation in Gangnam, and how the GBOE may be a bit more chaotic than SMOE and my local education district. I also know the whole "it depends on your school" thing. I guess I just want to know if there's been a Gangnam-wide policy change or shift that I haven't been made aware of.

Thanks for the input.

[pkang0202]

I didn't see much of a difference between a SMOE and Gangnam school other than more classes taught and the HUGE jump in salary.

The native teacher handlers at the Gangnam office were a bit better to work with than the ones at SMOE. However, expect many of the responses to your queries be "Look at your contract" or "Its the principal's decision."

[mellow-d]

When you're doing your calculations, keep in mind that your housing allowance (900,000won) is added to your salary as income. Now that we are taxed on the full 100% (was 70%) of our incomes, your health payment and income taxes will be a lot more than you expect. At tax time, I dished out over a million that I owed in taxes and my health payment alone has recently gone up to about 90000 a month. Curiously, the pension payment is only based on your salary and not your entire income

[alistaircandlin]

I've never worked for SMOE, but have been happy working at Gangnam. I've been here less than one year, but I believe the only difference from 2 years back is that we now get the housing allowance, rather than accommodation. As mellow-d said, there's been some change in the taxation, but I don't feel we get taxed so much. At least, not compared to the U.K.

You also get some money each month to spend on teaching resources, which I've found useful, and you can get a discount on Korean classes at GNUCR, if you are interested.

How do you work out that you get a million extra though? I make it about 400/500 thousand extra because of the larger housing allowance. Don't you get around 2.6 million + 500,000 housing with SMOE?

Are you going for elementary, middle, or high school?

[nukeday]

I didn't get accepted to Gangnam (I've never been good at interviews), but after researching it, it didn't seem like such a great deal.

It would've been a 100k raise (unless you really get a lot of future raises), plus 400,000 more housing allowance. My school provides my housing, which I think is 600k, so it's more like a 300k housing allowance raise.

MINUS the 2.0 million won renewal flight money SMOE gives.

PLUS higher taxes

It would've only netted me more money if I could've found a cheap place to rent (700k or less) in the gangnam area.

And I heard nonsense about "writing journals" and sharing them with other teachers. The sort of micromanaging crap I've come to expect from working in hagwons in Gangnam.

Who knows if I'll renew with my current SMOE school yet, but I am not too heartbroken about losing out to Gangnam.

(note, I'm making 2.4 and i take the housing i'm given)

[nukeday]

[crsandus]

[nukeday]

You haven't signed the contract yet, right? I'd say nothing is written in stone yet. The whole reason I applied to Gangnam was for contingency purposes (if my renewal doesn't work out at this school, etc). And who knows, maybe the Gangnam school would've been in an extremely convenient location, etc.

[mellow-d]

The journal thing is for new teachers to Gangnam. So you would write a weekly journal online and then discuss them for I think it was nine or ten weeks or something. It's a temporary assignment.

[ThingsComeAround]

[alistaircandlin]

The journal writing is a professional development thing. You share it with a group of other foreign teachers in Gangnam, and post it on line.

The idea is reflective practice: you think about what went well in your lessons and what didn't - how can you make improvements. Honestly, it's not a waste of time, it's just good teaching practice. Anyway, it's only a temporary thing, for ten weeks or so. It will take you twenty minutes at the end of the week, and you are supposed to feedback on other teachers' journals too, with thoughts and suggestions.

Quite a few teachers I've met travel into work from elsewhere on line 2, rather than paying a lot for a place in Gangnam.

[winterfall]

[mellow-d]

Yes, all ps and hagwons have a higher medical deduction than before but it's going to be a lot higher since the housing allowance is included as income. If he already has housing included at SMOE and doesn't take an allowance, those deductions would be lower as would his income tax deductions.