Transfering to another school and immigrations issues.

[Hope]

I have been teaching with a local public school under a JLP regional contract for two years. It has been a dream job with a lot of freedom to do what I want and teach the way I want. I have truly felt valued and appreciated by everyone. People seemed to have gone out of their way to be kind and generous to me. But, things really changed abruptly after I got a new Korean Co-Teacher and my local education office got a new Superintend of Schools and a new School Inspector for English Language Education. I have been treated harshly and rudely, particularly by the new School Inspector. So, I am considering transferring to another school in Jeollanam-do province with the help of the provincial education office. I am wondering, being that I am currently on a JLP regional contract, if I do transfer to another school in the province, with the help of the Provincial Educational Office, can I simply transfer my visa at the immigrations office, or will I need to apply for a totally new visa? Applying for a new visa, which I wish to avoid, would require submitting a whole new set of hard to obtain documents from back home.

[Brian]

Your best bet is to email Chris at the Jeollanam-do Office of Education.

chrisofficeofeducation at yahoo.com

I wonder how easy it'd be.  I know when I wanted to transfer to another school in Gangjin county---because there was another native speaker already at mine and I was only teaching 6 classes a week while another native speaker was working at 10 schools---I was told I couldn't.  And when I tried to sign a six-month contract this year I was told it was impossible because the school would have to find a new native speaker teacher halfway through the year (even though public schools often hire in April  )  Anyway, "it's impossible" is usually just code for "I don't know." 

But I'd recommend emailing Chris if you haven't already.