Boarding school jobs for a unique candidate?

Parent Cafe
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<p>My turn to ask for some advice on behalf of a friend.</p>

<p>Last night, out of the blue, I got a call from my BFF – best friends from middle school through college. He is in the middle of the most romantic adventure ever: Four years ago, he quit his job, sold his house, bought a 33’ sailboat, and (after months of preparation – years actually, since the plan had been in the works for at least a year before that) took off with his wife and two daughters, then 8 and 5, to sail around the world. His original plan was to be back by Christmas 2006, but that went by the boards a long time ago. He called me from Phuket; they are leaving there tomorrow to cross the Indian Ocean. He expects to be in Madagascar in 4-5 months, and to make it to South Africa sometime in the fall.</p>

<p>He is beginning to think more about re-entry, though. When they get back, they will have nothing to their names but whatever they can get for the boat. One of his fantasies has been to get a job teaching environmental science or government and politics at a boarding school in New England, somewhere they could live cheaply and frugally (or for free as house proctors or something), and where his kids could go to school. He checks the NAIS website from time to time (sailing around the world not being as isolating as it once was), but sees very few jobs posted.</p>

<p>He has, to put it mildly, a unique and romantic resume, one that I would think ought to be attractive, but does not fit into any pre-existing category for a teacher: Yale B.S. in Geology, UVa law degree, partner in a Seattle law firm, chief of staff for a U.S. Senator, manager of an almost-successful reform mayoral campaign in our hometown, and 12 years as a staff member at a top national environmental advocacy organization. At various points in between all that he spent significant time working at a crab cannery in Alaska, as an Outward Bound instructor and group leader, and as crew on a large sailboat crossing the Pacific. For five years prior to his departure, he had a seat on the New England Fisheries Management Council, the intergovernmental body that regulates northeastern fisheries, and he made several trips to the Grand Banks with fishing boats. He is a classic mens sana in corpore sano WASP – the top scholar-athlete in our high school class, lifelong (meaning: until he started sailing around the world) hockey player, lifelong hunter and canoeist, descendant of Jonathan Edwards and Timothy Dwight. But, apart from 8 months with Outward Bound, and participating in his daughters’ home-schooling for the past four years, he has no prior teaching experience.</p>

<p>Also, he doesn’t really know exactly when he will be back. He doesn’t want to sail up through the Caribbean during hurricane season or along the East Coast in the dead of winter (home, such as it is, is Connecticut). So it would have to be late spring '08, late fall '08, or spring '09. The first is what he’s supposedly aiming for, but I don’t believe he’ll really make it (and it would mean spending no time at all in Brazil, which seems like a pity). Job-thinking would enter into the timing decisions.</p>

<p>So . . . Does anyone have any ideas how he can market himself for this? Is his idea realistic at all?</p>

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<p>I’ll add that yesterday was an extremely emotional and nostalgic day for me. In the early afternoon, I got a call from my friend’s sister – my Senior Prom date, and a participant in the two most embarassing moments of my life – with whom I had not spoken in 15 years. (There is a little Brideshead Revisited in this relationship.) She was responding to a voice mail I had left her last weekend asking if she knew where her brother was. It had been over a year since he had responded to any of my e-mails, and nothing had been posted on his website since early December, except that a couple outrageous pictures of the girls with a tiger, without any information about where and when, showed up 10 days ago. Then, in the evening, 15 minutes after I got home through the horrible ice storm, he called out of the blue, with no idea I had spoken to his sister a few hours before.</p>

<p>Here’s his website (spottily maintained by a brother-in-law) if you want a little vicarious thrill: <a href=“http://www.sailingestrela.com/”>http://www.sailingestrela.com/&lt;/a&gt; </p>

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<p>He sounds like he should be of great interest to boarding schools. Most are just high schools though, precluding them from being a place where his kids would go to school now.</p>

<p>There is a web site solely for BS jobs. Someone on the prep forum might know the name but shouldn’t be too hard to find via Google.</p>

<p>It does look like a wonderful life teaching/living at a great BS.</p>

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<p>His older daughter will turn 15 in the fall of '08, so she will be ready for high school whenever they get back (and probably ready to get back in a classroom, too). I think they plan to continue to home school the younger daughter (who has never been in school) for a few years under any circumstances.</p>

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<p>Exeter would be a good fit. He needs an introduction to the Headmaster–if he doesn’t have one. I am sure he knows an Exeter graduate from somewhere in his past?</p>

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<p>Wow, what a fascinating journey they’re on! But what I’d <em>really</em> like to hear about is your Brideshead Revisited relationship :wink: (it’s one of my favorite books, and IMO the best thing that’s ever been on TV.)</p>

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<p>Only a little Brideshead Revisited! Bookish, awkward boy falls in with charismatic, larger-than-life classmate who has a hot sister. Except all of us were straight, and the relationship began when we were much younger, and no one was tragic or doomed. A few years ago, however, when I was visiting my parents, I met the current owner of the house where they lived when we were in high school and college, and she let me take a look through it, and it was full of memories.</p>

<p>Last summer, my daughter and I watched the first few episodes of the Brideshead miniseries during a little college-film festival she staged in our den. It was great to see it again. She loved the part where Sebastian says not to clean up the vomit, that’s what the porters are for. Some things never change at college, and some things do.</p>

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<p>Well I’m glad no one was tragic or doomed! It sounds like a wonderful time to look back on.</p>

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<p>Heh. Our daughter has taken the DVDs of the series with her to college, hoping to indoctrinate her new friends into the beauty of Oxford, the consequences of too much wine, and the pronouncements of Anthony Blanche. The great thing about the series (aside from the stellar acting) is that it’s an almost word-for-word adaptation of the book, and it’s done perfectly.</p>

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<p>He’d be an interesting candidate, but his lack of teaching and coaching experience will hurt him at the elite schools. If he’s serious, the best route to take is to sign up with an independent school placement agency. Carney-Sandoe is the best known–used by almost everyone. And there’s no charge; they make their money by charging the schools for their services, not the candidates. Candidates begin signing up in the late fall and, to maximize their chances/offers, must make themselves available for at least one of the job fairs sponsored by the agency. The fairs generally run in January, February, and March. Keep in mind that few people are hired at the fairs themselves. Instead, if the initial meeting goes well, the school will fly the candidate in for more intensive interviews. All this means that finding a job at a boarding school, especially a good one, is an involved process that requires felxibility. That said, there are always schools out there scrambling to fill spots well into summer; if he’s not that picky about where he ends up, it’s possible he could find something without going through the usual rigamarole.</p>

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<p>Those girls are going to have interesting college applications :-)</p>

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<p>The boarding school hiring season is primarily in March. THe end of March break is usually when current faculty either sign their contracts for next year, or decide to leave. However, hiring can take place right up to the last minute in August. Carney Sandoe is the agency used by most New England schools. Hope that helps!</p>

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<p>Too bad he’s married and I am too…</p>

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<p>

Perhaps he can get a job teaching about quantum theory and time travel. That’s quite a feat he accomplished with his sailboat – though personally I’d prefer a yacht that slowed down the passage of time for its crew rather than accelerating it.</p>

<p>;)</p>

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<p>Wow, I love their web site. I want to be in that family! :wink: Living at a boarding school would probably be incredibly boring for them after having had those wonderful adventures…</p>

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<p>calmom:</p>

<p>LOL! I did the math, too, and it did not compute.
How about Andover? I’ve met some families there who homeschool.</p>

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<p>Exeter is a little more freewheeling and artsy. Wouldn’t NH be less expensive? I don’t know that he’d get full tuition for his D with no previous experience as a teacher and no Phd. Elite private schools tend to have a faculty line-up that looks as good as any of the top LACs.</p>

<p>Half tuition would still scare the bejesus out of most folks.</p>

<p>He should think about applying to some of the American schools in far off places…momrath and robrym used to rave about the school in Jakarta…</p>

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<p>I have met some teachers from Andover, and they had neither Ph.D.s nor even M.A.s Shocking, isn’t it? I expect it’s true of many other prep schools as well. </p>

<p>I mentioned Andover because the father is hoping to live on campus, so the difference in the cost of living between NH and MA would be greatly reduced. And if he cares to go shopping, I suspect many people from that part of MA go to NH to shop in order to avoid sales taxes.</p>

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<p>Were they faculty or lunch ladies? Check out the faculty website. Also note the ages. Teens, like young archtiecture students ; prefer younger faculty.<br>
<a href=“http://www.exeter.edu/admissions/147_meet_the_teachers.aspx[/url]”>http://www.exeter.edu/admissions/147_meet_the_teachers.aspx&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Even in the elite school of the midwest, you have to have a Masters or a Phd to get a look see–unless you’'ve taught at an equiv private school.</p>

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<p>Cheers, the reason I met some is that they ambled over to Cambridge to get advanced degrees at Harvard. But they’d already been teaching for a few years. I don’t know how they got their jobs in the first place.</p>

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<p>There are quite a few H grad degrees.</p>

<p>That’s a great school–although the student body is highly individualized–if that makes sense.</p>