We're moving! Really?

We’re moving to Egypt.  We are leaving the place where we grew up, attended elementary through high school, got married, and raised our kids.  We are moving overseas.  We are leaving our aging parents. We are leaving friends. We are leaving the familiar, the safe.  We are leaving the place we thought we would live for the rest of our lives.  Six years ago, we never dreamed that we would retire very early, sell our home, and move anywhere - let alone overseas!  So, how did this happen?

Before I tell you our story, I want you to understand that we are very happy with our decision. We are looking forward to a great adventure.  I have landed a job at a school that promises to be very professionally rewarding and nurturing. We are looking forward to meeting new friends and having new experiences. Gary is looking forward to leisurely days on the Mediterranean Sea. I am quite sure that if the things I am about to tell you had not happened, we would not be on the journey we are now on. We have made a decision that may not make sense to all people, but it makes sense to us and we are happy.

For every action, there is a reaction.  It is through a series of actions that we were led to this decision.  Those first meaningful actions, for us, started early in 2010 and then went into hyper-speed after our state’s 2010 election. The people of Michigan voted in a new party for governor, house, and senate.  A super-majority. A party that believes that the private sector will always be better and more efficient than the public sector. Immediately, this new party went to work writing bills and passing laws.  In 2011, they wrote over 200 bills that would have significant consequences in the lives of all public workers.  For Gary, a corrections officer at a maximum security state prison, and for me, a public school special education teacher, this meant our lives were about to change in ways we could not imagine. (One of the laws they wrote that year would ultimately have devastating and even deadly consequences for thousands of people in Flint, Michigan) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flint_water_crisis

In 2010, in order to reduce the cost of public education and to break the powerful teacher unions, opening the door for more charter schools, the state offered a retirement bonus to public school employees. Local districts began offering an added layer of bonus money to get teachers to retire even earlier.  In addition, this state, among others, started a campaign to demonize and demoralize teachers by framing them as the greedy “takers” of YOUR tax dollars - offering up as proof the large number of teachers who cashed in and left the profession when the extra $$ were offered. The state seemed pleased with this campaign, so it soon spread its campaign of hate and distrust to ALL public workers, since it was widely believed by the private sector workers that anyone who works for government had been on the “gravy train” for far too long.  This was following the 2008 recession. This was at a time when the average worker was struggling to make ends meet, while CEO’s pay was at an all-time high. The public needed a group to hate and blame for their problems- and public workers were an easy target.  Gary, as a corrections officer in a maximum security prison, was as much in the cross-hairs of public disdain as I was as a teacher.

Due to the enormous number of bills written and passed in 2011, I discovered that I really was not just an employee of a local school district; I was also an employee of the state.  In order to fund the state’s retirement bonus, those of us who were still public employees suddenly found ourselves paying an extra 3% tax that no one else in the state had to pay.  It was an automatic 3% pay cut for both Gary and me to pay for those who had just been given a bonus, with no promise of any benefit for those who were paying the tax. http://courts.mi.gov/search/pages/results.aspx?k=303706%5D At this time, the state also started to lament that the teachers' pension funds were running out of money. They put new employees on a hybrid plan and those of us who had a pension were told that if we wanted to keep it, the 7% we had been paying into the plan was no longer enough - we would have to start paying in 11%, or forfeit our pension.  This was another 4% pay cut on top of the 3%.  They also quickly passed the 80/20 law, where public employees would be required to pay 20% of their healthcare costs, effective immediately.  The argument was that everyone in the private sector has to pay that or more, so no more ‘gravy train” for those greedy public workers.  What no one considered was the fact that this was on top of the 3% tax that had just been imposed and the 4% increase in pension funding. It was not phased in over time, but an immediate pay cut.  No time to adjust your lifestyle or reduce your bills at home - immediately people were taking home $7,500-10,000+ less per year (per employee, not per family).  In addition, the state cut funding to local schools and municipalities, so contract negotiations were about hoping for a freeze in pay and not further pay cuts, since the state had already taken so much in such a short time. For those already retired, or about to retire, the state passed laws to start taxing those pensions once received.  We started wondering if we could we really afford to stay in Michigan once retired?

Things were even worse for some of our colleagues.  After the people of this state voted down an “Emergency Manager Law” which would allow the governor to appoint people to take over failing schools and cities and strip all power from locally elected school boards, mayors, and officials, and make dictatorial decisions - this new governing body decided to rewrite the law, calling it an “Emergency Financial Manager” with even more power, and attached money to it so that it would be referendum proof.  The consequence was that some of my teaching friends in these schools that were taken over by the EFM lost their homes because their pay was cut up to $35,000/year with one swipe.  In the prisons, the legislative body decided to privatize the food services.  State food service workers were offered to be retrained as corrections officers, but they would have to start at the bottom of the pay scale.  Some of these employees had worked in the prison for 20 years and were more knowledgeable about managing prisoner behaviors than most of the corrections officers.  Now they would be forced to take pay cuts of $20,000 or more.  

Besides for pay, our jobs were becoming less satisfying.  In the prison, the new private food-service company, Aramark, paid their employees just over minimum wage, gave them little training, and required the state to provide their employees with protection provided by trained corrections officers. Extra officers were not scheduled, being a body-guard to the employees of a private company was just a new expected duty.  At around this same time, the state imposed some other new rules.  No longer would officers be paid a 6 minute “line-up time” where they were briefed on anything that was happening in the prison, any prisoner unrest that might be happening, etc.  Officers were still expected to show up early, for free, to be briefed - but that pay was cut.  In addition, the Resident Unit Officers (RUO) position was cut. (The highest paid, non-management position) This job had been created so there would be one person who was in charge of a housing unit - one person who would be in the same housing unit every day and would get to know the prisoners and the paperwork and procedures for each unit.  It was one person who would actually get to know the prisoners in that unit so that he could anticipate who was having a good or bad day.  When that job was cut, the paperwork and duties of the RUO were divided up among other officers, with no added pay.  The mood in the prison was quickly becoming hostile.  The new food service company struggled with food quality and quantity. The company was cited for issues with maggots and rats in their kitchens.  http://www.mlive.com/lansing-news/index.ssf/2015/07/michigan_cancels_aramark_contr.html 
Instead of the slotted spoons the State had used to serve with, Aramark used unslotted spoons and considered the water with the peas, carrots, or other foods as part of their “portion size”.  One day, Gary came home to tell me that things were heating up - gang leaders were seen sitting at the same table in the cafeteria.  This could mean only one thing - they were planning a riot.  Instead of fighting against each other, they had a new enemy, anyone who worked at the prison and the State.  I immediately called my Senator and representative to tell them about this development - and was told that this was on the radar of the state and that all the legislators were getting complaints from around the state.  (The state’s response was to stop serving food in the cafeteria, put the food services under the Governor’s office umbrella -which was exempt from the Freedom of Information Act, another law they had just passed, and to forcibly drug the prisoners who were potentially able to start a riot) At this same time, the legislators thought that people would be happy to pay to become a corrections officers, and our colleges could reap the financial benefits.  Prior to this, the State had been paying for an academy to train their workforce, and corrections officers were hired first, then trained (while being paid).  Now, candidates were asked to pay for the training, with no guarantee of being hired.  This led to a huge shortage of needed staff and Gary and others were being “mandated” to work overtime about once every other week.  This new “normal” led him to make the decision to step-down as Scoutmaster after serving the troop for a decade and helping it to grow from a dying troop of 4 boys to the largest troop in the area. He simply no longer had the time anymore, and due to changes the state made in the formula for getting time off - vacation time to go camping with the boys in the summer was now impossible. Never knowing when he might be forced to stay for overtime, Gary also chose to step-down from the Coast Guard Auxillary as well as other volunteer work he had done prior to these law changes.

In the schools, legislators were deciding how best to show that public schools do not work. Why would they do this, you might ask?  In these years, Michigan saw the largest growth in private and charter schools that has ever been. Michigan now leads the nation in the most for-profit charter schools. http://michiganradio.org/post/three-little-known-facts-about-charter-schools-michigan#stream/0 http://www.mlive.com/education/index.ssf/2013/11/national_charter_school_report.html The reigning legislators and governor believed in putting tax dollars in the hands of private businesses because of the rhetoric that private always does things better and with less waste than public (ie: government). We were made to give our students more and more standardized tests, putting tax dollars in the hands of corporations, like Pearson, who make said tests.  We were threatened that we would be fired if our students did not improve on these tests year after year.  We saw the loss of seniority and teacher tenure was reduced to being almost meaningless. We were told that we had to write standards on our board for every lesson that corresponded with the Common Core.  It didn’t matter if the kids couldn’t understand what those goals or standards were, as long as they were on our board, we would be given a better evaluation score on that portion.  We were told that our teaching now had to fit with the evaluation tool which was very rigid and did not allow for flexibility or the evaluation of the human aspect of teaching.  We were told that no matter how hard we try, our evaluation score would likely go down with every new evaluation tool they used because the public is tired of everyone being a “highly effective and proficient” teacher - so someone would have to be the sacrificial lamb every year.  We saw colleagues put on notice for failing to meet the highly effective standards, reduced to part time or laid off - some had just one or two years before they became eligible to retire.

Through this all, I worked to try to change the narrative.  I wanted people to understand what was happening in our state. I became involved with a group called “Badass Teachers” (BATS) which acknowledged that our teacher unions had been influenced by big money and sought to start a grassroots activist organization which fights against NCLB, Common Core and the overuse of standardized testing and unfair teacher evaluations, and supports public schools and public school teachers. http://www.badassteacher.org/ I traveled to Lansing to try to educate some current and future politicians about the importance of public schools, valuing ALL the gifts that kids have (not just the academic ones) and trying to help them understand that professional educators should be consulted before educational policies are made. I stood up for workers’ voices. I put my Senator and Representative on speed dial and am now on a first name basis with them.  I started writing letters.  I joined rallies. I joined a Trades and Labor organization. I joined the negotiation team for my local union. I joined the Democratic Party. I volunteered a lot of time working to get a Democrat elected as governor for the 2014 election.

The election of 2014 was a kick in the gut - the people of our state had decided to keep the very legislators who had created this much chaos in our lives and the lives of so many others. It was a reality check.  This was our lowest point.

My date of first eligibility to retire was quickly approaching - June of 2015. We had to make a decision. Yes, there was a local bonus attached to retire early, but  I was not ready. Gary said he could not stomach working at the prison for much longer and things were going to have to change. If he was going to leave the prison within a year anyways, it made sense for me to retire, too. With the decisions being made in the state, it seemed only a matter of time before they made even more changes to the pension, or got rid of it altogether.  Why wait?  We now had to face the fact that we could not afford to keep our house into retirement.  We were going to have to drastically reduce our bills. Gary had an idea on how to use our love for the water to solve our financial problems while fulfilling our desire to travel in retirement. We would sell everything - literally everything - buy a catamaran and sail.  We’d have no house payment, no car insurance, no tax on our pension, no significant bills at all. Heck, we might even be able to save a little money - what did I think?

Intrigued. Scared. Excited. Crazy.  But one thing I knew for sure, he was right.  If he was going to leave his job no matter what I said, we were going to have to make some drastic changes and this seemed to fit with what we love to do.

So, how did this lead us to taking a job in Egypt?  The more we talked, the more I realized I still wanted to teach. I felt like something was still missing - I needed to do something to cap off my career.  Money also played a part in this decision, I can not lie.  Since certainly the life savings of a teacher and corrections officer would not afford us a new boat, I worried about having enough money to fix up a used one. Remember the colleague I mentioned who lost his home due to the drastic cuts in the school taken over by the EFM?  Well, he was now working in Indonesia.  I had been following his journey for 4 years.  Could international teaching be the perfect compromise?

When I approached Gary with this idea, his reaction surprised me.  “Sure, take a teaching job anywhere in the world, as long as it is on the ocean and near a yacht club.”  

I contacted my friend in Indonesia and he got me started along the right path. (Thanks, Richard) He encouraged me to join a site called “International Schools Review” (ISR) where international teachers are able to write reviews about their schools, their administrators, and their communities. https://www.internationalschoolsreview.com/  I also joined “Search Associates” where I downloaded my resume, letters of recommendation, and other important documents. http://www.searchassociates.com/ I read their site every day to search for jobs of interest to me, checked the ISR site, and made my decision whether or not to apply.  I found it very difficult to find schools near the ocean that also had positive reviews on ISR.  As a practicing Christian, I prayed that the right school would be out there for us.

In October, 2015, I was contacted (via email) by Schutz American School in Alexandria, Egypt.  I had not applied to this school, but they had found me.  They did not know of Gary’s statement that we had to move near the ocean - but this school was just 4 blocks from the Mediterranean.  Was there a yacht club? Yes.  I looked at the reviews on ISR. The reviews were the best I had seen of any school! What was the administrator like?  The reviewers spoke very highly of him.  Still skeptical, I checked out their website and emailed a teacher who was currently working there. She was from Wisconsin. Young, blonde hair and blue eyes.  What did she think?  She felt safe.  She walked around alone, in a city of 4 million, and felt safe.  She had been there two years.  She was happy with the school and the administration, but she wanted more diversity and since this school served primarily Egyptian students, she was moving on.  No red flags. Great.  By December we had made the decision to contact the person at the school who had contacted me first.  We had a Skype interview.  I felt an immediate connection to Randa, the school’s principal.  The job was more than I had hoped for.  They wanted me to come and start up their first special education program to help some struggling learners.  They wanted me to do some professional development training for their teachers.  The job was wide open for me to shape in the best way I could to serve the needs of the students. I felt like this was a dream.  She offered me an interview with the headmaster.  At this point, we were in Florida visiting with my parents.  Tom, the headmaster, called while I was at the pool.  We talked for awhile on the phone and he offered me the job. Since it was Christmas break, several of the staff members were back in the USA, so he offered to have me talk with any of the staff before I gave him my answer.  We talked with David and Lynne who both teach at Schutz.  David, age 41, had never traveled outside of the USA before taking this job in Egypt.  They brought with them their three children, ages 3, 5, and 7.  They had been in Egypt since August.  David told us they had decided that this is the way they want to raise their children.  They obviously feel very safe and they absolutely love it.  Before we were off the phone with David and Lynne, we had made our final decision to take the job and move to Egypt!

So, while this first post is rather lengthy, hopefully we have answered the question on how we arrived at this decision.