I would not recommend accepting a position here and I will explain the reasons why so that others can make a more informed decision than I did. I will just start from the beginning and try to add every day or so.

My First Clue

I have taught abroad in China three times and they ALWAYS pay for 100% of your travel expenses. EA expects you to pay your travel expenses. That is just crazy. I have taught abroad and NEVER have been expected to do this. It cost me a fortune. Sometimes a school might want you to procure a visa as an act of good faith but paying for 100% of your travel expenses is nuts. If you get an offer such as this, run for the hills. I really should have known better but I lived in Texas and overall, it was not the most expensive thing in the world, yet. It wouldn’t be long before I saw my savings slip between my fingers.

However there are teachers from India, Nigeria, and other places that are just screwed. One of the Indian teachers paid something like $1300 USD to get over here just to be an assistant and got FIRED when a native speaker whose husband had been deported applied for a position. So he had to get back to India. We still speak. As far as I can tell, they had no real reason to fire him and offerred to let him to stay until the new woman arrived but you DO NOT want to find yourself in that situation. Do not stray too far from home unless you have a friend that has been through the program and can recommend it.

Housing

EA (Escuela Americana) offers single housing for teachers. I have been told that it is like a hotel. Dorm size fridge, no real ability to cook etc. so most teachers are looking to get out of there though I don’t know that it is a bad place. I haven’t been. EA pays 100% for that from what I understand. I have not been there so I cannot comment beyond that. I do know that taxi rides to/from school from that location are 80 pesos x 5 days a week which adds up.

Since I brought my child and my pets, I needed different housing and they found a place near the school. It was not the worst place on the planet but it was not well maintained (the skylight over the toilet would rain on you) and the landlord frequently “forgot” to pay the internet bill although he collected the cash for it. The biggest issue was the expense of this house. I was told they could find housing for 4000 pesos and they would pay 3000. Instead, they found substandard housing with no enclosure for my dogs for $7500 pesos a month. There also was no refrigerator. I was shocked. I had no idea where to buy a refrigerator and ultimately it cost me another 6000 pesos because they let me know it was not their problem and I had no other choice.

I found a beautiful place very quickly that was modern and well maintained for 6500 pesos a month. LESS than the poorly maintained house. It was also probably 3x the size with a jacuzzi, 4 bathrooms, and a beautiful view of the mountains. A new teacher had arrived that was living in the complex I mentioned before and she decided to take my old place. What happened next was shocking. They bought HER a refrigerator and only charged her 2000 pesos for a month as opposed to the 3500 pesos they were charging me and I am a single parent supporting a child.

Salaries

The salaries are very unfair. The teacher I mentioned before had been working in a call center in CO the previous year. As far as I know, she never finished higher education. It is possible she has a BA but nothing beyond that. She taught pre-school, had an assistant, and two small groups of kids.

I have 2 BA’s, a MA, a teaching certification, several awards, and have taught for a number of years. I initially was offerred 28,000 pesos a month plus a 3000 peso housing stipend but they were never really clear on what I would be teaching. They gave me over 100 7th and 9th graders which was absolutely unmanageable. I negotiated to lose the 7th graders because I was accustomed to HS and college students and the insanity in the classroom was way too much. They agreed and I took a pay cut that put me at the same salary range of the person mentioned above of $22,000 pesos a month.

The Mexicans make far less and they are not happy about it and they shouldn’t be. An educated Mexican colleague who is perfectly bilingual made half of what I did. We also rarely got paid on time and when we did the foreigners usually got paid well before the Mexican employees but not always. It seemed very random and we were just expected to wait. During Christmas Vacation, I was paid 2 days before the holiday was over. It was the worst holiday of my life.

From bad to worse

I separated from the school on May 28th after my daughter was injured and still did not have a valid visa for her or insurance as promised by the school. I went to migration myself with my limited Spanish and spent 3 days there applying for her visa. It was expensive, complicated and still hasn’t been approved. Basically, she is attending school here illegally on a tourist visa because of their negligence. Initially, I was happy with the settlement the school gave me and felt that we parted on fair terms until this happened.

So obviously I needed another job and was interviewing at a local University. During my 4th interview or so they told me that the General Director, Michele Bell had called them to warn them not to hire me. They know about the reputation of the school and Michele in general because she had worked there at one time. They assured me this was of no concern to them but what an awful thing to do to a single parent that was lured from her home country full of promises that were never fulfilled. They offered me the job anyway and I was supposed to start in the fall.

So when I left, I sent my daughter to Cuernavaca for 2 weeks of intensive Spanish courses. I emailed the school asking for her final grades (I never withdrew her) and was told that they could not provide them which would result in her repeating the 8th grade. At this school, I have seen students miss 2 weeks to vacation with their parents in Malaysia and Iceland and nobody bats as eye. This is not over. If fact, it hasn’t even begun.

The Latest

The issues with my daughter’s visa and grades still have not been resolved. Today is July 15 and there has been no change in status since June 16 despite the fact that I have paid the fees and turned in all of the documents. I am about to return to migration and ask for her tourist visa so that I can send her home.

Tecnologico de Monterrey offerred me 3 positions in different locations and I cannot imagine how anybody survives on the money they offer. I was offerred a high level position in Toluca as Director of Multicultural Programs. I went through 8 interviews and cancelled my daughter’s birthday party so that I could rush there to meet their needs. I was formally offerred the position but the principal Maria Lourdes Bejarano rescinded her offer when I was not available for a zoom interview while on vacation, traveling in the U.S. on July 4 (a major American holiday) with less than 24 hours notice. My father is in the late stages of Parkinson’s disease and this was probably the last time I will ever see him. Keep in mind that Tec had not paid me a penny yet I was expected to be on call 24/7.

Since then I have met another Tec teacher who was suddenly let go for no reason on his way to the foreign policy conference in NYC. He ended up stranded and homeless in NYC with no money whatsoever. I was able to introduce him to Mexican friends in the area and gave him my last $20 USD which won’t last long because I don’t want him to starve there.

Just today a colleague was telling me of an Ethics professor at Tec Hidalgo who is 42 years old having an affair with a 15 year old student. When she reported him, Tec’s response was that they could do nothing unless the parents complained. This man would have been arrested in the U.S.

But wait there’s more.

So I was preparing to move back to the USA when I received a call while I was attending an event in NYC for the Foreign Policy Conference. It was from Mexico so I took it because my daughter was there and it could have been an emergency.

It was another American School called JFK in Queretáro. My first instinct was NO WAY for a few reasons. First, The person who hired me at EA was run out of town for sleeping with a parent and this is where he went. This is the guy that led me into this disaster so I was foolish for even considering it. I was told by the recruiter that it was one of the best schools in Mexico and overall I trust him so I thought I would give it a shot. Why do I care who S.P. sleeps with right? Things are different in Mexico. You see wacky stuff like this all of the time that we would find highly unethical in the U.S. The hiring practices and just firing people because you don’t like them would be a perfect example. I should reiterate here that I was not fired. I quit after a number of terrible experiences and they actually paid me a $sum and had me sign an agreement not to sue them.

So during my very busy week in NYC where I was averaging 6 hours of sleep a night, I made time to speak with JFK on several occasions very late at night in some cases. For the first interview, the recruiter made me wait over an hour past our appointment time. She sent me a follow up email saying that she was “sure” they would hire me and gave me about 30 pages of paperwork to complete to enroll my daughter. This was followed by a conference with the principal that went very well and he assured me that he thought I was great and that HR would contact me asap. Then they GHOSTED me for 10 days.

This would be a good point to remind you that my visa was about to expire and my daughter has never had one beyond a tourist visa. School is also starting in both places in about a month. About 5 days into the ghosting I started making plans to return home. One this 10th day I received this:

Dear Jennifer! good morning!
We have just made the decision amd for this time, we will continue the process with another candidate that fits the position we are looking for! 
It has been amazing meeting such a interesting candidate as you, we hope we could keep in touch with you for further oportunities, ok?
Thank you so much!

My response:

We are returning  to the United States in a few weeks.  I would not be willing to pay to move out here again.  I have already lost $10,000 USD this year.  This was my last ditch effort to make this work.  I am sure you can find candidates that better suit your needs. One piece of advice that I would give every school I have dealt with during my year here is to be honest and transparent with their candidates.  I spent a lot of time while I was very busy in NYC to speak with each of you and it took 10 days to get any kind of response.  I have had similar experiences with many schools here.  While the US has plenty of problems, at least employees and job candidates have rights and protections that don’t seem to exist here.  Best of luck to you.

Where am I at now?

That is a great question. I am glad I dodged the Tec/JFK bullet and can’t believe I survived EA. My overall recommendation would be to avoid teaching in Mexico. Maybe avoid working in Mexico altogether. If you do, you MUST have a savings account if one of these irrational people cuts you loose to be homeless in Mexico. I have lost almost half of my life savings trying to survive here and my time is almost up. My visa expires 8/31 and I think I am just going to chalk this up as a very bad decision and return to the U.S. to help my mother care for my father during his final days. We also received news that my ex-husband may have bone cancer (I only found out because he stopped paying child support) so obviously that has a serious impact on my daughter.

Living in Mexico is wonderful. I cannot recommend it enough. The tourism is amazing, as are the people, food, and standard of living. Working in Mexico is a very different thing. If you are working online or retired, I would highly recommend it but unless you have a friend working at a school that they love, I wouldn’t do it. I hate to walk away but there is only so much abuse you can take.