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ETA
Joined: 15 Jun 2010
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 Posted: Sun May 19, 2013 6:03 am Post subject: Public School Vacation Time |
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| With public school, seeing varying weeks for vacation. Is it possible to have more than the standard 3 weeks per year? Perhaps in rural areas that don't have Summer/Winter camps. If so, what is the range? |
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maximmm
Joined: 01 Feb 2008
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| Posted: Sun May 19, 2013 11:40 am Post subject: |
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| Some public schools offer 9 week-long vacations. |
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No_hite_pls
Joined: 05 Mar 2007
Location: Don't hate me because I'm right
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| Posted: Sun May 19, 2013 4:50 pm Post subject: Re: Public School Vacation Time |
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| ETA wrote: |
| With public school, seeing varying weeks for vacation. Is it possible to have more than the standard 3 weeks per year? Perhaps in rural areas that don't have Summer/Winter camps. If so, what is the range? |
I thought standard was 4 1/2 weeks or 5 1/2 if you stay at the same Office of Education more than one year. |
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ttompatz
Joined: 05 Sep 2005
Location: Kwangju, South Korea
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| Posted: Sun May 19, 2013 5:35 pm Post subject: |
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Depending on which GPOE you are with the standard is 18-21 working days per contract. (typically there are 22 working days per calendar month).
If you work at a school that is designated rural then you get 5 more working days as part of your annual leave.
In addition you get 2 more calendar weeks for home leave when you renew/extend your contract with the same school.
Effectively, you are getting 4-6 weeks of paid annual vacation time on a PS contract.
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Weigookin74
Joined: 26 Oct 2009
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| Posted: Sun May 19, 2013 5:58 pm Post subject: |
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| ttompatz wrote: |
Depending on which GPOE you are with the standard is 18-21 working days per contract. (typically there are 22 working days per calendar month).
If you work at a school that is designated rural then you get 5 more working days as part of your annual leave.
In addition you get 2 more calendar weeks for home leave when you renew/extend your contract with the same school.
Effectively, you are getting 4-6 weeks of paid annual vacation time on a PS contract.
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EPIK contracts changed. New contracts are only giving one week renewal now. Takes effect next year. Eight working days in summer and 10 working days in winter, plus two weeks for renewal but cut to one week beginning next year. Some obscure rural areas may give some extra days instead of desk warming and camps. But not common and not official policy. I've never experienced these. Got to go home early sometimes during the breaks, but that's about it. |
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CentralCali
Joined: 17 May 2007
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| Posted: Sun May 19, 2013 7:35 pm Post subject: |
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Don't forget the BS stunt the public schools pulled effective with the 2012~2013 contract: you no longer get your renewal vacation at the end of the previous contract; the renewal vacation, and I quote, "must be used before completion of the sixth month of the new contract."
And then you add into that a couple of other fun facts:
- Technically, the schools are no longer having classes on Saturdays. That means the required number of instructional hours for the students to suff...er, experience cause longer semesters.
- Longer semesters = shorter school breaks for the students.
- The English "summer camp"/"winter camp" are still the same duration as before the elimination of Saturday classes.
All of this, along with a couple of other (in)famous Korean approaches to planning and scheduling create a huge conflict with management of the GET. The major conflict I encountered was with the contractual 2 weeks renewal vacation + the contractual 1 week summer vacation equaling 3 weeks of the 4 week school summer break. And, of course, the school management didn't bother to check with me before scheduling both the students and me for all four weeks of "summer camp."
It's no wonder people quit in the middle of contracts in Korea. |
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joeydonuts
Joined: 19 Nov 2012
Location: Seoul
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| Posted: Sun May 19, 2013 8:38 pm Post subject: |
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| CentralCali wrote: |
Don't forget the BS stunt the public schools pulled effective with the 2012~2013 contract: you no longer get your renewal vacation at the end of the previous contract; the renewal vacation, and I quote, "must be used before completion of the sixth month of the new contract."
And then you add into that a couple of other fun facts:
- Technically, the schools are no longer having classes on Saturdays. That means the required number of instructional hours for the students to suff...er, experience cause longer semesters.
- Longer semesters = shorter school breaks for the students.
- The English "summer camp"/"winter camp" are still the same duration as before the elimination of Saturday classes.
All of this, along with a couple of other (in)famous Korean approaches to planning and scheduling create a huge conflict with management of the GET. The major conflict I encountered was with the contractual 2 weeks renewal vacation + the contractual 1 week summer vacation equaling 3 weeks of the 4 week school summer break. And, of course, the school management didn't bother to check with me before scheduling both the students and me for all four weeks of "summer camp."
It's no wonder people quit in the middle of contracts in Korea. |
I can remember in 2008-9 when public schools would give us work from home time in Feb. --- effectively we had 2 months off a year. |
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Weigookin74
Joined: 26 Oct 2009
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| Posted: Sun May 19, 2013 10:05 pm Post subject: |
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| CentralCali wrote: |
Don't forget the BS stunt the public schools pulled effective with the 2012~2013 contract: you no longer get your renewal vacation at the end of the previous contract; the renewal vacation, and I quote, "must be used before completion of the sixth month of the new contract."
And then you add into that a couple of other fun facts:
- Technically, the schools are no longer having classes on Saturdays. That means the required number of instructional hours for the students to suff...er, experience cause longer semesters.
- Longer semesters = shorter school breaks for the students.
- The English "summer camp"/"winter camp" are still the same duration as before the elimination of Saturday classes.
All of this, along with a couple of other (in)famous Korean approaches to planning and scheduling create a huge conflict with management of the GET. The major conflict I encountered was with the contractual 2 weeks renewal vacation + the contractual 1 week summer vacation equaling 3 weeks of the 4 week school summer break. And, of course, the school management didn't bother to check with me before scheduling both the students and me for all four weeks of "summer camp."
It's no wonder people quit in the middle of contracts in Korea. |
Yeah, I had a school pull that crap on me last summer. But, I was staying in Korea that year to save money so went along with it. I usually always took my long vacation in the summer. Fortunately, that school let me go home earlier during the summer vacation. I got a lot of vacation last winter though. But this year, I need to go home. It's also the last year for having two weeks renewal. This years' school wanted a short camp. So, I told them I'm leaving a week after the exam is done and taking a month to go home. So, I'm doing the last 3 days before school starts back up again. Screw hanging out and watching movies. Korean teachers can do that for the last week or so of school without me. I really put my foot down and insisted.  |
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maximmm
Joined: 01 Feb 2008
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| Posted: Mon May 20, 2013 3:24 am Post subject: Re: Public School Vacation Time |
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| No_hite_pls wrote: |
| ETA wrote: |
| With public school, seeing varying weeks for vacation. Is it possible to have more than the standard 3 weeks per year? Perhaps in rural areas that don't have Summer/Winter camps. If so, what is the range? |
I thought standard was 4 1/2 weeks or 5 1/2 if you stay at the same Office of Education more than one year. |
The standard is 18-20 days off per year and there's the possibility of extra vacation if renewing your contract (unless that has changed?). Yet, some public schools are funded by the city - these schools tend to work outside of the standard gepik/epik/etc contract.
I know of one regional public school program in a rural area that's sponsored by the city - the vacation amounts to 9 weeks (minimum - or so the program manager said), work hours = 20 per week (overtime beyond that) and one stays in school for 7 hours (not the standard  . Another upside is that the public school teachers within this program have formed a community of a sort there (20 teachers from the city-run program and 40 from EPIK? I don't recall the details).
The obvious downside is that it's in the rural area, and then there's also the pay. The pay is decent for a newcomer (the standard for most epik/gepik/etc, but with obvious perks such as very long vacation and fewer teaching/office hours), but it really doesn't go much higher for those with teaching experience.
Overall, it's not a bad job from what I can tell, but clearly one has to be considerate of the upsides and the downsides, since they both exist. |
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CentralCali
Joined: 17 May 2007
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| Posted: Mon May 20, 2013 8:10 pm Post subject: |
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| joeydonuts wrote: |
| I can remember in 2008-9 when public schools would give us work from home time in Feb. --- effectively we had 2 months off a year. |
Yep. I remember doing that, also, in 2006 and 2007. For the summer of 2008, not only did I do the paperwork for it, but I really did "work from residence." In that case, the residence for a solid month was my hospital room--the K-teachers visited me and we went over the students' material and even some of the proposed test questions. Of course, that school was far better than the one I was stuck with in 2012.
The caveat on "work from residence" was that you couldn't leave the country. And it's no longer permitted for the foreign teachers anymore. |
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CentralCali
Joined: 17 May 2007
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| Posted: Mon May 20, 2013 8:56 pm Post subject: |
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| Weigookin74 wrote: |
| Yeah, I had a school pull that crap on me last summer. But, I was staying in Korea that year to save money so went along with it. |
Did the school go along with the contracted overtime payment for you? If not, then you got suckered.
| Quote: |
| I usually always took my long vacation in the summer. Fortunately, that school let me go home earlier during the summer vacation. I got a lot of vacation last winter though. But this year, I need to go home. It's also the last year for having two weeks renewal. This years' school wanted a short camp. So, I told them I'm leaving a week after the exam is done and taking a month to go home. So, I'm doing the last 3 days before school starts back up again. Screw hanging out and watching movies. Korean teachers can do that for the last week or so of school without me. I really put my foot down and insisted. |
Glad to hear it!
I guess I left out a couple of things I should've mentioned. One is that the schools are supposed to ensure the GET is present and to make sure the schools are doing that, the area/regional OoE is required to task an inspector to actually go to the schools to verify the poor sod is on the campus. Another is that technically the schools no longer have classes on Saturday, but in reality they do..and on Sundays! Yep, the school last year tried to convince me to work Saturdays and Sundays for no extra money. They got very upset when I didn't play along. Why'd they get so upset? Well, you see, they already told the parents that I'd be teaching both days on the weekend. Did they learn from that when summer vacation neared and they sent out announcements to the parents about who'd be teaching? Well, I'll let you figure that one yourself. |
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