Friday was contract renewals with the Daegu Board of Education. I am signing again for a third year. The perks of renewing is that you get a $2000 renewal bonus and 10 extra summer vacation days in addition to the 8 regular and August public holiday. 

The public school system has two hiring intakes in February and August. I am with the August intake. Daegu has 100% placement in all of its public schools for Elementary, Middle, and High Schools, so approx 500 teachers divided between the two intakes and renewal periods.

When I came in Aug 2010 they did a mass hiring to reach 100% placement. Of my original group 160 were hired in Aug 2010. From that group about 100 renewed for a second year in Aug 2011. Now we are down to 18 renewing for a third year in Aug 2012. 

The shortfall is made up from hiring in the new intake but that group is becoming smaller as more people keep renewing. The last intake only took about 80 people compared to our mass group of 160. In addition to our 18 renewing for a third year there were about 100 renewing for a second year.

I requested a change of schools as I have been with the same school for two years, am running out of original lesson ideas, and feel it wont look good on my resume to have only worked for one place in three years. 

Looking at the list of transfers, of the 100 or so people renewing, only about a dozen were granted transfers. Most of them were people from my intake, so people who had completed two years at one school. Most people ending their first year were not granted transfers.

Also my apartment is a big issue. My new school is 10 minutes by bus plus walking to the stop and wait time, or 20 mins by bike. The new school will provide an apartment walking distance to the school. But I want to keep my current apartment as the new neighbourhood is quite dead.

I am next to the Homeplus grocery store that has Tesco UK brand goods. Behind that are two movie theatres usually deserted compared to downtown. My cable package includes BBC Entertainment that nobody else that I know has. There are also several gyms and many foreign and korean restaurants.

My apartment is very nice compared to all the problems of first year (and the mouse coming out of the toilet). The landlord likes me and wants me to stay. We have to get both schools to agree to transfer the lease to the new school. Problem with that is my old school will need to find a new apartment for the new teacher. 

Also all the furniture belongs to the old school (bed, desk, chair, tv, tv cabinet). I am asking both schools to do a furniture swap and say that it all belongs to the new school now rather than me handing back a set of furniture and getting a replacement set. They cant get their head around that as they want to do it all by the book.

 
I can take a $400 housing allowance from the board and get my own apartment. Then I will have to buy my own furniture (bed, tv, etc). Also to transfer the lease into my name I might have to give 'key money' as a deposit. This can range from $500 to $5000 so I dont know what my current landlord was paid. 
 
I will know by the end of july what is going on.