Hello – I am a leaving ALT and I will not have any contact with my successor. For what ever reason our BOE has decided not to share our information with each other . I am not certain of the reasons but IMO it’s a huge red flag. As someone who wants to contact their successor I implore incoming ALTS to network ASAP. They will not be connecting us but we can connect ourselves. ( I can’t answer for everyone and can’t say everyone wants to be contacted )
Knowing what I know and what I’d like to pass off to my successor – The start up is hard and expensive AND you WILL be subleasing. On top of that what we know leaving would help our successors be better off in finding their own places swell. For ex: Currently Im paying through the nose to empty my subleased apartment that I cant pass off to my pred, paying extra for everything because I live higher than a second floor with no elevator. My “choice” ( and I use that world lightly because it was just the better of two bad options ) of housing is a huge factor as to why I am leaving and having to break a subleasing contract set me back a bit.
Personally I think the information is not being passed along incase we are in anyway discouraging a successor and it’d be more work to have a wave of alternates for the BOE. I have (and they will have ) Co- Alts at the same school willing to hold items i’d like to leave behind for free but with zero contact we are asked just to toss these items. I think it’s really blindsiding them. Our Prefectural ALTS have been in contact with their successors for a few weeks, our municipal have not. If you haven’t heard from your predecessor but know where you are going I suggest trying to network now or soon using placement threads / LINE Groups / Discord – most of us are around.
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Newbies will get their school names – Leaving ALTS will not get information of your name.There will most likely be a physical / digital message from a pred but it may not be passed off or given until after arrival on your first day of work after you’ve signed contracts for housing / utilities. Things like finding housing / what is impossible to throw out ( so you shouldn’t buy )/ what to try and live near / will be too late to get any insight on.
The main point about this post is if you haven’t heard from your predecessor while your friends are / have – it may be because we aren’t getting that information to contact you, not out of disinterest, not out of not caring but out of ESID – Our CO is simply not giving us a way to, so waiting waiting waiting isn’t gonna come through. If for you the ball is in your court to contact us – please do ! Some things are better to know before you come here – sign contracts for housing / utilities – and then find a welcome folder for you on a desk with our suggestions.
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21 comments
I haven’t been connected to mine either
What’s the point of this rant, just contact them if you can. Who cares.
Yeah my BOE is doing the same. Thought it was just due to the COVID delays when I came in but they’re doing the same again with me.
There’s a few red flags flying at the moment which is a shame. Up till recently (gearing up to leave) I’ve had a pretty awesome time. Some of what’s happening is leaving a pretty bad taste though.
I wonder if the BoE would go as far as to search the ex-JET’s desk?
I’ve never seen it before (generally it’s been a mess as it was just left the way the pred finished with it), but theoretically you could leave contact information in one of the texts.
Sketchy as hell, though. Seeing this stuff from JET BoEs is really bad.
I’m still struggling to find my pred despite posting in Discord servers, this subreddit, and Facebook. Departure’s still around 2 weeks away, so I’m not too worried. But with each passing day I grow more concerned…
Funny thing is I think I’ve either encountered the posts of or been directly contacted by every other Kushiro based JET by this point. lol
was given my successor’s contact information so idk what you are talking about. Just ask you JTE they have it.
Do they teachers you work with not have any information about this person? They should presumably receive documentation about who they are and when they’ll arrive so that they can collect them.
As someone who’s getting sent to an extremely remote location and hasnt heard a word yet, this is worrying to read lol
I understand wanting to contact them but they might not be in a position to give someone’s private contact information out. That’s private information and it would be inappropriate for them to give it to you without the person’s express permission.
Damn. I’m in contact with my JTE who is helping me with the apartment situation (though I can’t read the Japanese on the 4 choices I have) and in contact with my pred who i might just end up taking over his apartment (even though it doesn’t sound ideal and I have to wait until end of august since that’s when he is leaving). Imma see if my JTE can round up a few more options from the real estate agent, I feel like I’m being a nuisance but it’s somewhere imma be living for a year, need to feel as comfortable as possible.
Why didn’t you just name your placement and let them try find you online? There’s FB groups for each block. We already found out who was coming to our area ages ago through people introducing themselves on the FB group.
Some places have a Line group too.
We are also discouraged from contacting our successors. For the reason that they don’t want us to scare them off haha. One of the ALTs leaving this year is leaving a guide for her successor. Like what to expect at school, some helpful tips…etc. maybe you could do that?
We know the names of our successors and despite being told not to, a couple have reached out to them on social media to those who have public profiles. I didn’t because I’ll be in town for a couple days and can meet them in person and show them around. Otherwise you usually get a letter left behind to give you a crash course on stuff. You’re usually welcome to contact your predecessor afterwards for questions. It’s typically discouraged to prevent saying the wrong thing, speaking officially when you don’t have any real authority, and the off chance of spooking someone into bailing out.
I wouldn’t worry too much. Every BoE has to answer to JET’s various governing bodies such as CLAIR. So if you can’t work something out with them, you have options.
Same here. They won’t let me contact my successor. It’s a shame, I want to help them learn how to live in my area, tell them about the teachers and the kids etc. I wanna help them succeed here so that they have a great experience and because the kids are great and deserve great things. It’s frustrating. I hope they find me either here or on LINE.
I think it’s probably for the best. My pred only contacted me once, and it was to try to sell me his fucked up bicycle. I declined and he ghosted me lol.
My pred left me notes in everything. Taped onto textbooks, in the apartment, in desk drawers. He left me an entire packet in the apartment. He even left me a flash drive in my school desk (which I think may have been handed down from JET to JET) with tons of pages written about the position, schools, JTEs, culture shock, etc. And bonus: hundreds of books in mobi files so I always have something to read.
I guess what I’m saying is: you don’t have to contact your successor right away! Leave notes or a flash drive in your desk (and just tell your school or give it to a teacher- they don’t have to tell your BOE). He even left me his Facebook in one of the packets so I could contact him after I arrived. It was so helpful!
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I’m an incoming JET coming to Kanazawa. All of my friends had already heard from their predecessors and I hadn’t yet. I reached out to my supervisor who told me that my predecessor left due to COVID the year before & that there wasn’t an ALT currently at my schools. She was glad to connect me with another ALT in my city, although she’s working at another school.
I think this is another possibility as well (for those panicking), but I only found out after asking my prefecture’s JET discord & asking my supervisor directly! Someone in the discord also confirmed that she thinks my predecessor left the year before as well.
I’m an incoming JET to Mie. All I know rn is the name of my predecessor and my school, nothing else. When I asked for the contact info of my pred, I was completely ghosted ðŸ«
Not a predecessor but still gonna put this out there in case my city’s new JET comes looking in this thread: if you’re the new ALT for Minamata city, Kumamoto Prefecture, shoot me a message. I know your first name and your consulate, but no contact info, and I just want to offer myself as a resource as you’re prepping for departure.
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