Director's Wave | Volume 5 Edition 7

Dear CIS Community,

Something to Ponder

“Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself.” - John Dewey

This month is when we at CIS project staffing needs for the next school year. Recruiting, developing and retaining excellent staff that inspire students, colleagues and the broader school community is extremely important – most school heads argue that this is the most important thing they do or certainly one of the most important things they engage in. The recruiting season is complex, exciting, ongoing, and time consuming. What once was a recruiting session of about three months for international schools has changed to recruiting being a twelve month a year endeavour. CIS takes great care in its recruiting, screening and vetting, using a variety of protocols, in order to ensure our faculty and staff are aligned with our community principles (kindness, partnership, sustainability, good intent), appreciative of our mission (connect, inspire, serve) and dedicated to global citizenship. Whilst at the same time may provide skills and experiences that may challenge and refine the way we do things in education in order to help us continually improve.  Throughout the school year CIS reviews and meets with people applying to our school for faculty and staff positions that may open up. Later in October is when we start posting openings for the following school year. October to April are usually considered the busiest months with respect to recruiting - May to September once quieter months remain active - with November, December, January and February tending to be focal months. The market for international teachers is very competitive and continues to be more so each year. Economic pressures, societal issues and the current and growing teacher shortage adds to the challenge.

There are over 5,000,000 students attending over 10,000 schools worldwide with a combined faculty of close to 500,000 - of which CIS is the only one in the Cayman Islands. International schools are located in almost all countries in the world. To get a sense of the growth, in 2000 there were only about 2,500 international schools with a combined enrollment of about 1,000,000 students, who were primarily expatriates. Much of the growth is being attributed to the expansion of for profit schools. In 2000 roughly 75% of international schools were not-for-profit and 25% for profit. Today the numbers are essentially reversed - roughly 20% of international schools are nonprofit (CIS being owned and governed by the nonprofit ISS (International Schools Services), and 80% for profit.

CIS recruits candidates using a variety of methods including recruiting agencies, job fairs, HR services and word of mouth to name a few. CIS is fortunate to be owned and governed by ISS (International Schools Services) which is one of the largest international teacher recruitment agencies in the world. Our process includes extensive review of paperwork, interviews, security checks, police checks, anti-bias training for recruiters, practice lessons and thorough reference checking, just to share a brief overview of the process.

Anticipated openings for the 2025-2026 school year will be first posted with WORC (Workforce Opportunities and Residency Cayman), followed by ISS and our website and if warranted, with up to three other recruitment agencies. CIS being just one of nine AMISA Distinguished Schools (AMISA is the American International Schools in the Americas), being an IB World School, being accredited by MSA, and inspected as excellent presents some competitive advantages. Naturally, things are not all rosy: high cost-of-living increases, exposure to potential natural disasters, lack of affordable housing, prevalence of mental health issues on island, the Cayman Islands (as a small island of course not being a transport hub, and affordability of health services are some of our competitive disadvantages. Managing these advantages and challenges, CIS is fortunate to garner interest from candidates around the world and in the Cayman Islands. This is reassuring, especially when considering the competitive market for teachers, and whilst the Cayman Islands is an attractive location, as is CIS, the Cayman Islands has notable discrepancies in standard of living relative to other international schools in other location where schools are also situated within a similar and sometimes more desirable climate, have similar strong resources, have government to government agreements involving no income taxes for educators, and are in large capital cities. Thus, our perennial challenge is to ensure our professional climate at CIS is an environment in which current and future staff wish to serve.

Wishing you a pleasant weekend - be well.

Sincerely,

Jim Urquhart
Director - Cayman International School