For prospective Gwangju Foreign School teachers

Most international foreign schools provide free round trips every year to their teacher's home countries. Gwangju foreign school doesn't. A teacher from a regular International school looking for another International school to work at would be advised to give this place a miss. Should a teacher with international school experience accept a position at Gwangju foreign school, he or she would be in for a rude awakening, because the benefits in comparison to one's former International places of emploment would be non existant.
On a positive side the school would be a good starting point for a teacher with no experience, as the Holleys accept teachers without certification. Unfortunately the new visa restrictions require applicants for an E7 visa (foreign school teacher visa) to have at least 5 years experience in their field. That means they will be unable to hire the younger crop of teachers that they usually get from the Princeton Asia Recruitment firm. Certified teachers who have no International experience, but experience in their field might not be averse to the spartan conditions of Gwangju foreign School, but then there are better paying schools looking for certified teachers without international experience anyway

Pay isn't the best at Gwangju foreign school. The school pays the equivalent of your basic Korean English Academy or GEPIC , SMOE teacher who can get by with word search hand outs, one word answer handouts, and by keeping a sense of order. International school teachers like public school teachers do two to three times the amount of work which includes making tests, marking them, meeting the parents etc., etc.,. Now if the school payed what the teachers really deserve, it might just scrape by as a an OK place to work.

Gwangju school and blackmail or extortion

Mrs Holley constantly uses the threat of having teachers blacklisted should they leave before their contract has finished. That's gotta be one of the lowest tactics one could use to keep people in their place. She can't blacklist anyone because they just up and leave. Gwangju foreign school isn't a big name school, and for one thing there isn't an International school blacklist for stuff like that. There isn't a blacklisting of teachers breaking their contracts in Korea either. The only way any one is blacklisted in Korea is if they stay way over after their visa time has expired, or if they are deported for drugs or any other serious crime. Breaking a contract at Gwangju foreign school is neither a felony nor a misdemeanour. It's nothing, and their isn't a thing the Holleys can do about it. There was a teacher who dared to leave before her contract had expired, and who recieved an e mail from from the Holleys informing her that she was going to be blacklisted for doing so. My God, any organization that has to resort to those kinds of contol tactics to intimidate their teachers, should close it's doors and look for another buisnes.

Glad to see someone else has added information about the Holleys enrolling students whom havent lived abroad for the mandatory 5 years. They are breaking the law left, right and center by doing this, and Mr Holley is a lawyer and an active participant in his church as well. Oh well going to church doesn'r guarantee good beaviour obviously. By law, International Foreign schools are not to enrol anyone unless their passports show that they were residents in another country for at least 5 years.
There are many students at Gwangju foreign school who have never been abroad for periods other than their summer and winter vacations.