It was more than ten years into my international teaching career when a colleague said to me, ’You never get all three – the school, the location and the package’.
That was nearly two years ago, but I have returned to that idea many times since. In fact, I wonder if doesn’t explain many an international school career, my own included: are some of us looking for something which, in the end, we can’t really have?
My first international school provided a first class professional experience. Coming from an unremarkable UK comprehensive school, suddenly I had not one, but two, well-appointed classrooms for my own individual use as we taught different Secondary sections on different floors. Suddenly, no class had more than twenty students. At first, I used to sometimes catch myself wondering where ‘the others’ were. Suddenly, every student had their own personal textbook (…this was the ‘90s!). No more sharing and photocopying. The students were polite, pleasant, keen to learn – everything, in fact, that I had sometimes wished for during that last period on a Friday back in the UK.
As if this wasn’t enough, my take-home pay doubled. Was this too good to be true? A fantasy? Would I wake up with a jolt and find it was all a dream? Well, if I did wake up with a jolt in my first few weeks it was because of the unfamiliar sound of the call to prayer echoing across a walled compound. Yes, I was in Saudi Arabia.
Like anywhere, the Kingdom has its fans and its detractors. While my classroom experience was excellent, and rekindled my enthusiasm for teaching, working in Saudi Arabia, for me, was not the problem. Rather, not working was, in that I found life outside work, while initially interesting, not for me. To go back to the idea of the ‘the school, the package and the location’, I had two out of three and, after completing my two-year contract, moved on.
Looking for something completely different, I resolved to forget about earning and saving for a few years and just to go somewhere ‘for the experience’, adjusting my priorities. Therefore I was staggered when, in Latin America, I found myself saving nearly as much money as in Saudi and experiencing an, at times, overwhelmingly different culture, one I’m not sure I made the most of in part perhaps because of the two years that had come before. After the Kingdom, all that reckless hedonism may well have been wasted on me. Three years on, I made another move. Yes, you guessed it: once again I felt I had two out of three and made another move, adjusting my priorities once again.
It would be neat and predictable if I got two out of three again but, unfortunately for me, the next time it was only one. One more move followed, and it was two out of three again. Perhaps subconsciously influenced by the idea of ‘The Impossible Trinity’, I am into my fifth year at my current school, the one where I have been happiest. Whether the school is that much different from those that came before or whether I am, I reckon I have a creditable 2.5 right now. Is that as good as it gets? Maybe. Is there anyone who has found their perfect fit, with their school, country and remuneration all ticking the box? You tell me, I’d love to know!
This article was submit by an ISC member. If you are interested in submitting an article as a guest author on our blog, contact us here. Once your article is submitted, you will receive one free year of premium membership to our website.
The journey to work is indeed an important one. The journey though is not so clear for international school teachers when they are looking for jobs at schools in cities/countries to which they have never been. So let’s share what we know!
I have been working at the American Embassy School (AES) in New Delhi for the past year. My journey to school starts every morning at 7:45am (March 2018) when I leave my apartment. I consider myself pretty lucky because the whole commute takes less than ten minutes and I can walk.
I am currently living at the Embassy of Bulgaria. apparently, Bulgaria had a huge delegation in India in the late ‘80s/early ‘90s, but due to some financial issues, the delegation has shrunk considerably in recent years. Thus, many of the apartments at the Embassy that used to be occupied by Bulgarians are now occupied by teachers from my school. Out of twenty-one apartments in the complex, eleven are occupied by AES teachers and ten are occupied by Bulgarian diplomats.
(The gardens on the Bulgarian Embassy grounds.)
The grounds of the apartment complex are quite beautiful. When I leave my apartment, I can hear birds chirping and see the sun shining (at least, I can in the spring and summertime – in the fall and winter there is quite a bit of pollution). But, this time of year, March, the sky is blue and there is bougainvillea blooming everywhere. The bright pink flowers bring a profusion of color to the landscape.
(Bougainvillea along the walls of the Bulgarian Embassy Compound.)
The gardener waves to me as I walk past. He’s busy feeding some of the many cats that live on the compound. There is a mama cat with four kittens who always say hi. They like to hang out in the backyard of the building. Every apartment comes with a terrace and garden, which is quite nice. There is also a pool that we can use, some barbecue grills, and a playground with a trampoline for kids.
(The pool at the Bulgarian Embassy – it’s filled from April to September.)
The apartment complex is a walled compound and there is a guard at the entrance 24/7. On my way out of the complex, I say to the guard “Namaste, Aap kaysayhey?” and he replies “Mayen tikh hoon.” I step out of the quiet of the Bulgarian and on to the street. There is color everywhere and the bees are humming around. It’s warm and breezy, maybe 70 degrees fahrenheit, and the high for the day will be close to 90F.
(The outside of the Bulgarian Embassy.)
I turn right and start walking. Along the way, I pass yellow and green auto-rickshaws (the traditional mode of transport in Delhi, very similar to the tuk-tuks of Bangkok), city taxis, motorbikes, and the ever ubiquitous white Suzukis that are used by Uber drives. Uber has recently become the preferred method of transport in Delhi and the white cars are everywhere. That’s one of the reasons why the traffic in the city is so bad. The proliferation of Uber. Thankfully, I don’t have to drive to get to school.
The walk is lovely. I pass the grounds of the Russian Trade Federation and the Ravi Shankar Foundation. There are bushes and yellow flowers and everything has been newly trimmed and smells like cut grass. I think most people who come to Delhi would be surprised by how green the city is. Although it’s home to twenty-five million people, there are quite a lot of trees.
(The entrance to the Russian Trade Federation.)
A sweet yellow dog comes up to me and says hello. Delhi has lots of street dogs and they are, for the most part, super cute and very friendly. I give yellow dog a pat on the head and continue on my walk. I pass a giant banyan tree, it’s roots all twisted and gnarly. I like the way the sunlight looks when its coming through the leaves. Everything is golden and shimmering.
(Yellow dog outside the British School.)
The traffic on the street in the morning is heavy because the British School is on this street. It’s across the street from my own school and parents and drivers are dropping their kids off for the day. I side step the traffic and continue along the street. Like I said, the whole walk only takes about 10 minutes. But sometimes I dawdle and daydream.
(The banyan tree in front of the British School.)(The yellow and green auto rickshaw waits for someone who needs a ride. Be ready to barter.)
Across the street from the British School is Vivekanand Camp. The people living in this community have been there for generations. It’s a miracle that the camp hasn’t been torn down yet – it’s the only one still left in the Embassy area, Chanakyapuri. It’s estimated that as many as 2,000 people live in the camp. They don’t have running water. Sometimes, on my way home from school, I see the municipal water truck parked outside the camp entrance. The women come outside with buckets to fill up from the spigot on the side of the truck.
There are always kids from the camp hanging out on the street. In the morning, they are headed to school. They wear the white pants and red sweaters that signal the government school uniform. In the afternoon, the boys play cricket. They harbor dreams of being the next Virat Kohli. He’s the current captain of the Indian national team. The camp is a stark reminder of the wealth inequity that persists in India and other countries in the developing world to this day.
(Boys hanging out outside Vivekanand Camp.)
I cross the street after passing Vivekanand Camp and I am at the entrance to my school. The school is surrounded by high walls and security guards. Men stand patrol at the gates and there are armed soldiers present. The campus is secure and safe. It’s right next to the American Embassy. I go in gate number 4.
(A woman walks past Gate #4, one of the entrances to AES.)
Once inside, it’s a short walk for me to the middle school building. The AES grounds are approximately eleven acres, and it feels a lot like a college campus. There are separate buildings for the elementary, middle, and high schools, athletic fields, a theatre, a cafe, a gymnasium, a pool, and even a climbing wall.
(A campus directory points the way to some of the different buildings that make up AES.)
The campus is known for being home to many different species of butterflies and birds. The biodiversity is incredible. Especially if you are used to living in a grey urban landscape. The number of gardeners who work on campus must number close to fifty. There are so many flowers to water and plants to take care of – they do an amazing job.
(Flowers on campus. They change with the seasons.)
I consider stopping to sit on a bench and enjoy the sunshine, but it’s close to 8am already. Teachers have to be at work at 8:00, although classes don’t start until 8:30. I’ll go to my classroom to do some prep and get ready for my classes.
(Benches and a garden outside the entrance to one of the elementary school buildings.)
I’ve made it to the entrance to my building. I give thanks for the nature that surrounded me on my walk, blink once more in the sunshine, and go inside to greet my day.
(A bulletin board next to the entrance to the middle school. Go AES tigers!)
This Journey to School article was submitted to us by guest author, Megan Vosk. Megan Vosk is a middle school MUN and Humanities teacher at the American Embassy School in New Delhi. She loves helping young people become more compassionate and engaged citizens. When she is not teaching, she likes to spend her time reading, watching movies, practicing yoga, and dining out with her husband.
What to know more what it is like to visit and live in Asia? Out of a total of 201 international schools we have listed in Asia, 59 that have had comments submitted on them. Here are just a few:
So what is your journey to the international school you work at? Earn oneyear free of premium membership to our website if you participate in this blog series – ‘The Journey to School’. Email us here if you are interested.
While many overseas filers don’t realize it, you probably have to file a state return (unless you are from one of the seven states with no state income tax, or perhaps from one of the two that tax only investment income. When you move overseas you still have a domicile in the US, normally the last state where you lived before moving overseas. That requirement applies to forty-one of the fifty states.
Potentially you have further complications depending on what state you are from. Six states don’t allow the foreign earned income exclusion. If you are from California, Maine, Massachusetts or New Jersey you have to limit your days in those states each year or they will want state tax on your foreign earned income. If you are from Pennsylvania and don’t own a residence there you can escape their state tax; otherwise pay up. If you are from Alabama they don’t have any exceptions, but a tax professional may be able to help you escape tax even there.
We had clients from California who didn’t believe us when we told them to limit their days in California. When they reported more than 45 days in the state and we prepared the return showing California state tax due on the return, they elected for us to NOT file the return. They prepared and sent in their own return. The California Franchise Tax Board is notorious for its persistence in attempting to collect tax. As all states receive copies of federal returns that use an address in that state, when California received the federal return showing days in the US as about two and one-half months in the summer and another two weeks over the year-end holidays, they sent a tax deficiency notice taxing the foreign earned income. When the taxpayers were not able to PROVE that they were NOT in California for less than 45 days, they ended up paying state tax on all of their foreign earned income. They subsequently returned to us as clients, and now keep proof of where they are each day they are in the US.
New Jersey is another difficult state. If you maintain a residence there generally you have to pay tax on your foreign earned income, regardless of days in New Jersey during the year. If you are domiciled there, don’t maintain a permanent residence there, do maintain a permanent residence elsewhere, and spend 30 days or less there, you can file as a nonresident. We had clients for whom we prepared tax returns, including a New Jersey return showing all of their foreign earned income subject to New Jersey state tax. They maintained a home there and were stuck. They became very irate with us, and went to a CPA firm in New Jersey hoping for better results. The results were the same. They returned to us as clients and did what we recommended – put the house up for rent. They were stuck paying New Jersey tax for one year only. They remain overseas, still are domiciled in New Jersey, but no longer pay state tax there.
You may run afoul of a state’s tax law due to changes in those laws. Formerly if you were domiciled in Michigan or Oregon and you lived outside the state for an entire year, you were exempt from filing a state tax return. Both states changed their laws, and now if Michigan or Oregon is your domicile, even if you don’t spend any time in the state during a year, you are still required to file a state tax return. Because both recognize the federal foreign earned income exclusion for many of our clients that is not a problem, but for some higher earners, they now have to file, and pay, state tax in those states.
There may also be issues with whether or not your state tax return is filed in a timely manner. While some states recognize the federal automatic extension of time to file for overseas filers, not all do. And while some states recognize the federal extension to October 15th, others require that a separate state tax return extension be filed. The safest thing to do is to get a start on preparing your tax returns to see if you owe money, file both a federal and state extension, and pay any amounts due. Then you have until October 15th to file the returns. That doesn’t mean you should delay your filing until October – it is easy to forget you haven’t filed after the subject of taxes is off of your mind for several months. Pay timely, and then file as soon as you are sure the returns are complete.
This article was submitted by Global Tax. 
