Advancing Education in Jeju: A Journey of Leadership

After the coup in Myanmar, my family decided to leave and move back to Jeju, where my wife is from.  I informed my school that I would be following them at the end of the school year and I started looking for work in Jeju.  I was hired to work as a Social Studies and EAL teacher in the Middle School.  I moved in to the faculty dormitory at the beginning of July!

The King family started at St. Johnsbury Academy Jeju.  I was a Social Studies and EAL teacher.  I also took on the responsibility of being the advisor for the Yearbook, Student Council, and National Junior Honor Society.

While the school already had a Chapter of the National Honor Society, we had not yet launched the National Junior Honor Society.  I volunteered to get this organization started.  We got to work quickly and put all of the pieces together to do our first induction in the Fall so that we could get the organization up and running for the current school year.

October, 2021

When I left Thalun International School in Myanmar, I was the Assistant Principal and I had also been the Learning Leader, IT Director, and Data Coordinator.  I had been very busy and the with the coup and COVID, it had also been a stressful time.  I was excited to be in the classroom, focused on the students and the learning.  When the Middle School Assistant Principal role opened, I was not planning to apply. However, on the last day the position was open, a number of people including the Middle School Principal and Middle School Assistant Principal implored me to apply.  I threw together my application on the last day and submitted it at the last minute.  I was selected for the role.

I started a cohort style MSc from SUNY Buffalo State when I was in Myanmar.  Luckily a couple of us who started together in Myanmar were now working in Jeju.  We completed our last courses and then wrote our research papers.  We completed the program in November of 2021.

After being offered the role of Assistant Principal, the current Assistant Principal came down with some fairly serious medical conditions.  As a result I started to do the role of the Assistant Principal on top of my teaching responsibility.  I continued in both roles into second semester, but then turned my teaching responsibilities on to another teacher and took on the Assistant Principal role full time.

The whole school professional development for the 2021-2022 school year was done in conjunction with Lead Inclusion.  Some faculty signed up to do the Inclusive Leadership Certificate via a hybrid model of learnign.  This program consisted of three Masters degree level classes that could be put towards a Masters Degree in Inclusion and Differentiation from San Diego State University.

The middle school had had a different schedule for every year of its operation.  The current iteration was a 14-day schedule that did not match well with what was going on in the other divisions.  With the current Assistant PrincipaI absent and me taking on their responsibilities, this was a good opportunity to affect change.  I created a new five day schedule to be more in line with the high school and make a simpler and more functional schedule.  Later in June, I successfully scheduled all of the students.

Throughout the 2021-2022 school year I worked as the Middle School Student Council Advisor.  We put on a lot of events and hosted several initiatives.  Our biggest achievement was creating the house program.  We set the foundation for what would be a house program adopted by the whole school.  We named the houses and had a competition to name and create design components of the houses.  I then created the logos and flags and ordered them.  We did not launch house in 2021-2022 because senior leadership decided it would be better to wait until the new Middle School Principal and I took over the division.

The middle school we took over had a lot of issues with morale and culture.  It was a big job to turn this around.  We set to work immediately to transform the culture and morale of the teachers and the students.  COVID and other factors over the previous three years had led to a pretty toxic culture for faculty and staff in the middle school.  Tackling this was going to be important to changing morale among the teachers and changing the trajectory of the school for the faculty and teachers.  In one year, I think it is fair to say, we went from the least happy and effective division to the most effective division with the highest morale.  This was largely due to the addition of the new Middle School Principalship, the new Principal and I working together to right the ship. 

Over the summer I collaborated with the Elementary Assistant Principal and shared the shirts, logos, flags, etc. with him.  Come August we were ready to launch the house program.  The House programmed launched in the Elementary and Middle School only, as the high school was not ready to get on board at this point.  The House program helped lead the transformation of the middle school culture for teachers and students and helped reinforce our Advisory program.  I was the keeper of the points and helped plan the events and activities.

Thanks to the generous support of St. Johnsbury Academy jeju and our Head-of-School, I had to opportunity to attend my first East Asia Regional Council of Schools (EARCOS) Leadership Conference at the Shangri-La hotel in Bangkok, Thailand.  The conference was an excellent opportunity to catch up with colleagues from across Asia, meet new people, and learn amazing things.  The conference was a valuable experience for me.  When I came back to the school I presented to some of the faculty about things I had learned. 

Now that COVID was “over”, the parents and students were looking to try new things.  We decided to slowly work our way up to Class Trips.  The goal was that by June of 2024 we would be able to take the Grade 8 students on an international trip, take the seventh graders on a trip to the mainland, and take the grade 6 students on an overnight trip on the island.  However, this first year we would take the grade 8 students to Gyeongju on the mainland.

 The trip was a huge success and the students really valued the experience.  This trip showed that we were ready to institute the class trip and that next year we could step it up a little bit.

In April of 2023, I was asked to be the Camp Director for an English Camp Sponsored by the Jeju Provincial Office of Education, Funded by the Jeju Development Corporation, Administered by Jeju International Schools, and hosted by St. Johnsbury Academy Jeju.  The camp hosted over 1000 local Jeju residents from across the island and ran for two weeks.  The camp was free to the students selected and their fees were paid by the Jeju Development Corporation.  Faculty from St. Johnsbury Academy Jeju, Branksome Hall Asia, and North London Collegiate Jeju were invited to apply to work at the camp.  It was a huge success. 

Completed a course through Harvard University with Project Zero.  The Course was Cultures of Thinking in Action.  I completed the course as a cohort with middle school faculty.  Once we finished the classes we presented to the whole faculty at a divisional faculty meeting.  It was great working with middle school colleagues to learn more about how the middle school runs and what the teachers are thinking.

I was asked to consider applying to move to the high school in the role of Assistant Principal for the 2024-2025 school year.  I applied for the role because it was a new challenge and because the school needed some continuity with both the high school Principal and Assistant Principal leaving SJA.  For the rest of the year I met with the outgoing high school Administrative Team, took part in the hiring of faculty, and went on the Admissions recruiting trips.  This is a picture taken in Busan on one of those trips.

Throughout the 2023-2024 school year I was a part of the Leadership Cohort program lead by Laura Gini-Newman of The Critical Thinking Consortium.  This cohort course was very reflective and a valuable professional development experience.  The course was done during our Wednesday Morning In-Service time.

In the 2023-2024 school year it was time to launch the Grade 8 International Class Trip.  We ended up deciding on a trip to Osaka & Kobe Japan.  The trip was four days in Japan and the students had a great time, despite the heat  The trip was a huge success.

During the summer of the 2024, I was asked to take a trip to two cities in Vietnam to promote SJA.  I got to work closely with a graduate of the home school, SJA Vermont, and with an educational consultant Maggie Wu.  I hope to work closely with these individuals in the future to build international awareness of the school and attract new students, making this a truly international school.

The summer of 2024 was a bit of a turbulent one.  Most of the operations managers and directors took the summer off and were not really available.  This resulted in a number of issues that those of us left behind needed to pull together and help with.  New Faculty onboarding and orientation needed to be taken over by Dr. Riniker and I.  We planned events, inspected the apartments, got housing to purchase the necessary supplies, and organized the airport runs.  I personally did eleven airport runs this year.

Throughout the 2023-2024 school year I was a part of the Leadership Cohort program lead by Laura Gini-Newman of The Critical Thinking Consortium.  This cohort course was very reflective and a valuable professional development experience.  The course was done during our Wednesday Morning In-Service time.

I have been talking about it since I finished my Masters degree, but I never started.  So, I decided that this would be the year.  I enrolled at the American College of Education to complete my Doctor of Education (EdD) in Executive Leadership.  I look forward to continuing my lifelong learning and about learning skills and knowledge that can help me be more effective in my current role.  I am now taking my third class in the program and it is going well so far.

In October of 2024 I got another opportunity to attend the EARCOS Leadership Conference.  For this conference I was afforded the opportunity to attend the pre-conference as well.  This was great as it was an 8-hour long professional development session.  I did my session with Dr. Ulcaa Joshi Hansen.  This was amazing because I had read Dr. Hansen’s book,  The Future of Smart: How Our Education System Needs to Change to Help All Young People Thrive. The book was great the session was educational, and Dr. Hansen was one of the Keynote speakers as well, so I got to hear more from her later in the week.  It was a great learning opportunity.

In late August 2024, I was asked if I would run the Jeju International Schools Fall English Camp.  The JDC had decided not to fund a summer camp at the last minute.  However, the feedback from the community was that they really wanted another camp.  So, JDC funded the camp and I was tasked with being the Camp Director.  I was excited for the opportunity to put on another camp and to work closely with the business office staff and JEINS one more time.  The camp was an even bigger success than the first one and everyone involved – Students, teachers, business office staff, and administrators – all had a great time.