Written by Dr. Dereck Rhoads, Executive Director, AMISA
Greetings from AMISA!
Happy August, and welcome to the start of the 2023-2024 school year! The AMISA region is a great place to live, learn and work! We extend a special welcome to our new Heads of School, and our three new member schools, Avenues Sao Paulo, Brazil, Escuela Santa Maria Del Valle, Honduras, and Colegio Decroly Americano, Guatemala. We have 15 new/returning Heads of School and each person is either moving within our region to join a new AMISA school, or returning to our region. Learn more about each of our new/returning Heads of School HERE.
Teacher Recruitment
AMISA Teachers, share your Teaching Stories with us! We are very excited to be working with our Partner, FILMISTAS for our new Teaching Stories initiative. The AMISA Teaching Stories initiative will feature videos of current AMISA teachers sharing their international teaching stories on the AMISA website. Our goal is to have a diverse set of stories. If you are interested in sharing your AMISA teaching story, please contact our recruiting team to share a short synopsis of your journey including the following information: how many years you have taught in the AMISA region, which AMISA school(s), and brief demographic information (marital status, with/without dependents etc.). Thank you for your consideration in volunteering to share your journey! Be sure to check out our Recruiting Events, and we hope to see many new and returning teachers seeking to join or re-join our amazing region at our in-person job fair in Atlanta!
Check out our Recruiting Events for the year, and plan to join us in Atlanta, Georgia, for our FREE in-person hiring event. Our Recruiting Service is FREE for teachers. We made several improvements to our recruitment database including adding an automated feature to send newly posted job vacancies to registered Active candidates. So, create your online file now to start receiving job updates, and of course Candidates and Recruiters can still Search and Browse for each other in our database.
We encourage schools to post vacancies as soon as possible – both Tentative and Definite vacancies can be posted. We encourage teachers and administrators seeking positions for the 2024-2025 school year to join the FREE AMISA Recruiting Service, and if you are already a member, make your file Active if you are seeking a new position.
We do have a few unexpected vacancies due to family and health emergencies, so if you or anyone you know is open to work for this year, please visit our website to learn more.
School Services
Our School Services team has been hard at work over the last several months, especially June and July, as we finished shipping thousands of new school supplies schools across our region. We saw an increase in orders this past year as schools used our Purchasing Service to purchase and ship international school supplies and resources for faculty, staff, and students for the new year. Our Payment Services now provide more detailed account statements and streamlined processing for balances and transaction information.
If your school does not currently use our School Services, we invite you to contact us today to learn how we can provide great service to your school and teachers as well save time and money.
Salary Survey
We will be conducting our bi-annual salary survey this year so, Heads of Schools should be on the lookout for the salary survey information. As a reminder, schools must complete the survey to receive the results, so please help make the data as robust as possible by contributing your school’s information.
Professional Learning (PL)
Call for Proposals is now open for our annual Educators’ Conference (EdCon24)
We are pleased to share our updated PL Plan – thank you to our PD Committee and everyone that has provided feedback into our PL options and processes.
AMISA Professional Learning (PL) Committee
We have many exciting learning opportunities planned for the year ahead including:
August 31-September 1, 2023 Governance Institute in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
New Leadership for New Times
September 27-29, 2023 GovCon23 in Miami, USA
Cultivating Community: Harnessing the Power of Communication and Common Purpose
November 16-17, 2023 Global Citizen Institute in Cartagena, Colombia
Empathy to Impact
December 8-9, 2023 Teacher Job Fair in Atlanta, USA
Joint Fair with International School Services (ISS)
March 20-22, 2024 EdCon24 in Asunción, Paraguay
Growing & Connecting: Better Together
Call for Proposals is now open for EdCon24!
We will be expanding our networked learning for Academic Leaders AND school Operational Leaders when we launch our new Leadership Conference (LeadCon) in September 2024 in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Please check out the PL section of our website often for updates, and be on the lookout for our Power Hours and other networked learning opportunities.
Global Citizenship
A specific area of focus for us this coming year is supporting Global Citizenship and specifically Civic and Service Leaning. Civic Learning is a process through which young people develop the knowledge, skills, and commitments to interact effectively with others, improve their communities and the broader society, and participate in democracy (https://www.ed4democracy.org/what-is-civic-learning). Service Learning can be defined as: "a form of experiential education where learning occurs through a cycle of action and reflection as students seek to achieve real objectives for the community and deeper understanding and skills for themselves (https://www.edutopia.org/blog/what-heck-service-learning-heather-wolpert-gawron).
Join your colleagues in Cartagena, Colombia November 16-17 for Empathy to Impact! As part of the Regional Institute, the first 10 schools that register will receive a FREE coaching call AND all schools that register are invited to a FREE 3-hour workshop for students. For more information, please visit the following link: https://www.amisa.us/event-details/empathy-to-impact-a-regional-institute-on-global-citizenship
In addition to our Global Citizen Regional Institute, check out the AMISA Social Innovation Diamond Challenge, and start planning now to apply for the AMISA Global Citizen Award. Visit our Awards page to learn more.
On behalf of our entire team at AMISA, I wish every AMISA Member School and Partner an outstanding 2023-2024 school year! Thank you for allowing us the opportunity to support you as we join together to enhance the quality of education for students. Have a great year!