In the last week of August Footprints was contacted by the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education (SMOE) to let us know that they had over accepted and that almost 100 teachers who had been accepted for teaching jobs and who were in various states of departure readiness would not be required to teach with the SMOE. When our Footprints Placement Coordinator Dave Harvey first learned about this situation while he was in Korea receiving public school teachers at the Incheon airport he took immediate action to ensure Footprints teachers were best accomodated and re-situated as quickly as possible. Footprints Korea General Manager Scott Kim immediately followed up with the Ministry of Education, the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education and with Ben Glickman, co-owner of Footprints Recruiting. As the largest supplier of teachers to public school teaching opportunities in South Korea, this situation was to dramatically affect 26 Footprints teachers.
Immediately Footprints went to work to see what we could do to salvage our teachers jobs. We were able to re-position several teachers with various other Ministries of Education around Korea, we were able to guarantee first placement status with some teachers for February placements with the SMOE, we were able to negotiate with the airlines to honour plane tickets for departures any time within a 365 day period so that teachers could use the airfare to travel to Korea for work as soon as their jobs were solidified and we communicated with each teacher affected personally. Ben Glickman, co-owner of Footprints personally called each teacher and spoke with them at length about the situation, Footprints' response to this situation and the possible opportunities or alternatives each teacher had to explore.
"Ultimately this was a terrible situation", says Footprints co-owner Jeff Strachan. "Footprints is always trying to put forward the best impression for the industry as a whole and we undertake to represent only those opportunities that are genuine and professional. The Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education offers this in all their jobs. This is an incredibly unfortunate mistake, one that the SMOE is extremely apologetic about and one that we are committed to resolving for our teachers in the best way possible for each and every one of them."
Ben Glickman, who has been placing teacher in Korea since 2001 says, "This is an unprecedented situation for us and for one of our clients. We have treated this is a priority one emergency to ensure our teachers are first up to bat when SMOE is considering teachers and we are effectively working with the SMOE administrators to help them come to terms with what has happened and to help them deal with this situation as effectively as possible."
When asked what happened Ben Glickman could only comment that "when time permits there will be an inquiry into the situation but at the moment we are working to find the best possible outcomes for our teachers."
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