Employment

Hello Walt,

For teaching information you can try http://www.teachislands.vi/ , its a great idea to call to get information. That is for public schools. For private schools on St. Thomas you can try http://www.vimontessori.org/ Another private school of similarity to Montessori is Antilles School http://www.antilles.k12.vi.us/ they are both private schools - for public school placements you would need to contact the Department of Education.

Higher level positions in tourism - are often Government positions. Government positions often times go to local Virgin Islanders or to resident non-local Virgin Islanders who have lived there for a long long time. Not saying its impossiable. You would need to contact the Tourism Department. There are private sector tourism groups like the Hotel Assocation. You could get involved with the Chamber of Commerce in order to net work with business people and get into a position that utilizes your degree - thats probally your best bet. Business people here in the islands like to hire people who are here, and who they know are going to stay. They don't really want to spend time getting you incorporated into the running of their office and then find out you are not staying on and they have to go look for someone else.

So you might have to take a job at first that you might not have wanted and then work yourself into the position that you do want.

Teaching in the public school system takes a great amount of patience.

You might want to read the Settler Handbook - which you can get at http://www.vitraders.com its on the home page or find it in the book section.

--Islander

Most of the kinds of jobs that you are talking about will go to people who are on island, working diligently and who are noticed by someone. Most jobs (and apartments) are found by word of mouth. As Islander pointed out, lots of folks want to live here, but many (most) leave in 6 months. I keep seeing questions on this board which are basically "How can I move to the VI without any effort?" And the answer is, you can't. You might have to come down for a 3 month stay, find work in an area that interests you, see if you want to stay, change jobs, be a good worker, etc. One other thing, many of the jobs in the financial industries (EDC companies) are reserved for bona fide residents.