Hello fellow teachers, here is my dilemma:
I am an English teacher in Hong Kong, and over this past academic year I taught kindergarten. I was hired by an agency which paid me a salary of 18000/month to perform teaching duties at two specific kindergartens. The agency would like to have me resign a contract with them, and I expressed an interest to do so. Before stating the school I would be teaching at next year, they offered me a general contract giving me a 1000/month raise, bringing my salary up to 19000/month. I had no intention of signing without having the school specified, but essentially this meant they would be willing to pay me 19000/month for doing the same job I did last year (same working hours, teaching duties etc). I expressed an interest in teaching Primary this year and they found a school, where I interviewed and they loved me. During the interview however, it became clear that this job entailed much more work. First of all, work hours were increased to a 42.5 hour work week, instead of the 40 hour work week which I performed last year, and which was stated in the general contract for 19000/month. On top of that, this school was requesting that I design and implement a new curriculum for the school, to become the copyrighted property of that school at the end of the year, to be used for future teaching years. Also they would have me create, plan and teach an after school program once a week, to have working hours balanced out by leaving earlier Fridays. It all sounded great to me and I am game to have more responsibilities and more challenges at my job, but clearly I would need to be compensated for the additional work, especially for the curriculum design. I broke down my salary requirements for that school, stating in a very reasonable and detailed email to my agency that 19000 is for the regular teaching duties, +3000 for the curriculum design +1000 for the after school program =23000/month. This was not an inflated salary but rather what I believed to be a very reasonable request. The agency told me that the most they could offer me was 19000, not even a counter offer!
My question to all of you is what do you consider a reasonable salary for English teaching duties PLUS curriculum design at a primary school, and what is a standard amount of profit for the agency to make off of me per month? Remember this is not the government EDB scheme, nor is it an international school, it is a government aided Catholic school, which looked very nice, less than 5 years old with a lot of resources. Also I am qualified with a Canadian University degree in psychology and a cert. TESOL from Trinity college. My two schools last year loved me and I have gotten a lot of praise from various short courses I have taught for my agency, and praise from the agency itself.
I Apologize for the essay here, but I figured it is easier to give more details now so people don't have to ask for them later. Thanks everyone!