Gwangju foreign School and the Pension

Gwangju foreign school and pension

From another blog

This post is about the Gwangju Foreign school and their handling of the pension from another site.

The school only recently adopted the Korean National Pension, so in a sense the owners of the school have been flouting the law for a good 8 years. Thats not surprising considering their track record. Mrs Holley in a meeting with the staff in September of 2007 tried to explain it away by saying the school was given permission to not have it. Mr Holley who supposedly has a legal background should have been there to support her but wasn't. Now no body gives an institute, or buisness permission to not offer the pension to it's staff, so what she said was rubbuish . The only way a Korean buisness or academy gets exempted is if an alternative plan is used. Of course there wasn't any such alternative plan at Gwangju Foreign school, so Mrs Holley swung a fast one over on unsuspecting teachers who were more concerned about hanging on to their jobs than challenging the issue.

At the meeting Mrs Holley did offer back payments to those who requested it, but no documentation or forms were provided for the teachers to show what the options available really were. In reality the teachers should have taken the owners up on the offer and requested that they paye the 4.5%of all of their previous earnings. Unfortunately for the teachers this was glossed over by Mrs Holley in such a way as to make it appear to be too complicated to consider. Teachers didn't get proper representation to ensure that they got a fair deal, nor were they aware of just what was happening. This was probably what was intended, and is just another exploitation job by unscrupulous owners. Seems to be the grain at a lot of places. A little dissappointing to see this side of the Holleys especially since they profess to be upright church going citizens and pillars of the community.

I also find it incredible that the the other owner Mr Holley who professes to have passed the bar exam for the state of West Virginia should allow his wife to get set up so that she would commit a form of purgery. She blatently lied like she always does, and although no oath was taken she still knowingly, made a very false statement. It's all the more serious because her and her husbands Christian background places a premium on honesty. It's also no credit to Mr Holley as a lawyer that he should run a buisness this way, and if there is a term "shonkey lawyer" then it's certainly appropriate in this situation.

Gwangju Foreign School is in the Black

Recent posts under the Google :"Gwangju Foreign School"http://joongangdaily.joins.com/article/view.asp?aid=2579016 show that the school is actually in the "black" or if my terminology is correct no longer in the "red", and that it has been that way since 2005. Well that's good to hear, especially since the Holleys promote their summer camp on the basis that it's needed to paye the salaries of the teachers and staff. An honest institution payes their staff salary based on normal teaching requirements. Any work done over and beyond that like a camp or extra teaching hours is extra paye. The Holleys are always going on and on about how their school is running at a loss, so man they gotta be the biggest liers under the sun.
The same recent posts show that their other school in Cholla Bukdo is running in the red. I'm wondering if the camp they run in Gwangju is to make money off the backs of the teachers to prop up this other school. If so then that stinks, but by the same token if they would be willing to paye their teachers for working at their camp then they would be showing a little decency. (That would be asking a lot from these cut throat exploiters, but you never know)

By the time one adds in the cost for the meals, the cost for the buses, and other expenses the total cost per student is no different from any other International school.

I mentioned in one of my earlier reports how a female teacher on quitting her two year contract after a year recieved an e mail from the Holleys saying she would be blacklisted from teaching anywhere in Korea. The article in the Joongang daily says that the Holleys were afraid they might lose teachers, and were hoping they wouldn't jump contract. How hilarious. No Institute in their right mind will tolerate a teacher just up and leaving. To imply that Gwangju Foreign school would have bowed to the wishes of teachers wanting to leave for a better school is cracked in the head. The holleys are vicious, dirty, and completely underhand when it comes to their teachers wanting to leave before their contract has expired.