New Job

I have been an out of work teacher since December 17, 2010, when I left my wonderful school in Copperas Cove, Texas and moved to Georgia with my husband. I had subbed in that part of Georgia years before and with my son at home (and the memories of the schools) I decided that I wouldn't pursue subbing there.
After we moved to Belgium, I filled out all the crazy paperwork, then did it again online for the Department of Defense schools (DODs). I subbed some, but not a lot, in the junior high and high school. I was worried to sub in the elementary schools because I didn't want to be stuck in a classroom of 5 year olds all day long.
So, when a half time job came open in the DODs school here, I was excited. It was for the middle and high school, so I wouldn't have the same kids all day long, and it was only half days. 8:30-12:30 every day, fabulous. There was, of course, lots more paperwork, but it was worth it for a job, and a government job at that!
Our school is run by the Department of Defense for the American children of service men and women, but SHAPE is special. We don't have a huge population of Americans here, but we are the majority of the population. DODs has a contract with many of the NATO nations that their children can come to our schools. I don't know how tuition is covered, but it is for most of the countries' military children. Most of the civilian workers pay tuition, unless it is part of their contract. This means that 43% of our school population are International kids.
In my little special education math class, I have 5 students, 3 are Americans, one is British and one is Spanish. This makes differentiation just that much more important and challenging. Teaching fractions with real life implications is only important for 3 of the 5 students, the others will use the metric system for cooking and measuring. When I asked the other kids what they would need fractions for, they both answered similarly, "For math class."
Because our school has 43% International students, and we are not on an American military base, we don't follow the same school schedule that the other American DODs schools do. It's a good and a bad thing, I guess. We started on the 15th of August, the other DODs schools started on the 23rd. Teachers reported earlier than that. Any questions that I had for the hearing impaired teacher or the special ed director had to wait until school was in session, because their duty days hadn't begun yet. That was extremely frustrating. We will get out of school a week later than the other schools as well. BUT, we get a full week off for "All Saints Recess," the week of Halloween, we get a similar sized Christmas Break, another week of in February for the beginning of Lent (locally known as ski week) and two more weeks off in April for spring break. There are also little days off here and there for the students that are religiously based Belgian holidays. All-in-all, I can't complain. Our new students are complaining about not having Thanksgiving off, but who else celebrates it but the Americans? We get off at noon that day. No Black Friday sales to get ready for or football to watch with the 7 hour time difference, so it doesn't bother me.
I can't say that I'm in love with my job yet, but I don't dread getting up in the mornings, and I have had jobs like that before. It's a new age level, a WHOLE new school system and it's going pretty well.