An advantage Search Associates enjoys comes not only from the extensive careers of our Senior Associates in international schools, but with our continuing, personal contacts with schools which provide our network with unequaled first hand-knowledge.
For example, in the beginning months of the 2011-12 school year:
Ray Sparks visited four schools in Vietnam, two in Cambodia, one in Malaysia, four in Thailand and two in Philippines over a two-week period, as well as securing a hotel for the Search Associates Leadership Fair Nov. 5 and 6, 2012, in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Nick Kendall spent eleven days visiting five schools in Korea, seven in China and six in Vietnam.
John Ritter’s visits to schools were in conjunction with his consulting activities:
- Asia Pacific International School, Seoul, South Korea (administrative retreat and full-staff retreat).
- United Nations International School of Hanoi, Vietnam (board retreat)
- Neev Academy, Bangalore, India (new school planning, principal search)
- Hiroshima International School, Japan (board retreat)
- Asmara International Community School, Eritrea (board retreat)
- International School of Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso (board retreat)
- International School of Kenya, Nairobi (part of AISA conference)
- Khartoum American School, Sudan (board retreat)
- Chiang Mai International School, Thailand (board retreat)
In addition, John was a presenter at both of the AISA (Association of International Schools in Africa) Conferences in Nairobi: the Leaders' Retreat and the Educators Conference.
Gez Hayden stayed close to home to visit three schools in Thailand and went further afield to visit one in the Philippines, five in Africa and four in China.
Ralph Jahr’s reasons to visit schools entailed governance workshops (American School of Yaounde, Cameroon; International Community School of Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire) or Director searches (Escuela Campo Alegre, Caracas, Venezuela; International School of Tanganyika, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania) or, sometimes, for both reasons, as at the International School of Panama and the International School of Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago.
Harry Deelman attended the IB Nordic/Baltic Schools Conference in Estonia, and in addition to learning plenty about new and old schools in Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Finland, he visited three schools in the Baltic countries, bringing his total of international schools visited to over 320. Harry has at some time or other visited the city/town/village of location of over 500 of the more than 600 active schools on the Search database.
David Cope made his biannual trip to the Gulf to visit schools and saw five in Qatar, three in Dubai, two in Abu Dhabi. David also did a site visit to the Bonn International School (Germany) in conjunction with a now-completed Head search.
John Magagna made a special trip to Korea for a site visit in conjunction with a Head search at the Chadwick School while I did combined Head search/governance visits to Cairo American College and the International School of Kuala Lumpur, plus providing a governance workshop at the International School of Phnom Penh in Cambodia.
The meaning for candidates of all this, especially for those looking outside their home country for the first time, is that not only have our Associates been administrators in the schools we now work with, but that we have unparalleled, current, first-hand institutional knowledge of and information about the schools registered with us.
Happy Holidays,
Jim Ambrose
President
