Private schools - Disadvantages

Very high customer service expectations

• Imagine you were forking out $6,000 - $10,000 U.S. a year on your child's education. What level of service and performance would you expect? This is precisely the situation of a private school parent. You need really good customer service skills and know how to handle people well. How you handle parents is a large part of your job, because for every student that leaves, that's $10,000 less for the school. You really have to go the extra mile.

Stability

• If you're a new teacher, private schools are more stable than public ones because you know you won't be axed first in cutbacks just because you're the least senior. However, if the private school is just starting up or enrollment is falling, you could be stuck with a low salary, or the school could go belly up. But, if you find a well-established private school with a long waiting-list (the majority case) as long as you continue to do a good job, your future is quite secure. However, if the nature of the school changes over time, you have to adapt and support the changes or go looking for another job - there's only one school so you can't transfer.