How does your school feel about travel (summer vacation 2022)

22 comments

1. I’d keep it quiet if I were traveling, but I won’t be unless it’s somewhere less crowded than where I am now anyhow.

   There’s little to no possibility of good coming from advertising that, and a strong possibility something bad could come of it.

2. While I understood in 2020/2021 schools having a say in ALT’s outside work lives, it’s 2022. Your school has no business telling you what you can or cannot do in your own free time, including asking you to stay home for three days after returning. Do whatever you like and don’t tell them about it.

3. I told my supervisor that I went to Osaka over the weekend and he basically said ‘sugoi’.

4. Open with it. I had no problem staying within the prefecture when we were advised to do so, but now that’s been lifted my BOE is happy to follow the guidelines.

   I’m pretty careful around avoiding crowded spaces, masking etc, and will have a few days at home after my longer trip this summer.

5. Went to Fukuoka 2 weeks ago, Hiroshima last weekend and off to Tokyo, then Osaka in 2 weeks. My supervisor knows about them all and just asks for omiyage and to ‘be safe’.

6. I used to be super open about it, especially as a mostly anti-social person who travels for nature and animals (and food), travelling with her extremely anti-social husband. We don’t drink, smoke, go to bars/clubs, or talk to “strangers”. We live in our own bubble and look at bugs and cool animals. And we’ve always preferred to eat takeout and grocery store food, rather than dine in, to avoid noise and a sense of being “rushed”. We’ve never done it for the rona fears, this was just our norm.

   But ever since the whole Okinawa SOE fiasco, they’ve made my life a living hell, and nearly ruined my vacation there. So I just don’t say anything anymore. It’s honestly none of their business, and it works out for me because I can forget about buying everyone omiyage 👍 When I did that, I was scolded for traveling instead of being thanked for the gifts. No more, no thanks.

7. Don’t ask, don’t tell

   Anything you say can and will be used against you

   I never tell my BoE about anything going on in my personal life. I’ve had them pressure me to cancel if I let something slip by accident or they saw a website on my laptop when I went to the bathroom.

   Everytime I take nenkyuu, I say I’m tired and it’s hot and I just wanna play games or some bs, when in actuality I’m going to a 5 day trip in Tokyo.

   Even if you get COVID now it’s so out and about that you can just say you’re not really sure where/when you got it. Just make sure to privately let any close contacts know.

8. My supervisor likes to know if I’m going outside of Kyoto for multiple days for safety reasons. Otherwise no one cares. If I go somewhere with certain cute things I show one teacher. And the grounds keeper lady asks where I go to (I usually go exploring somewhere in the weekends). One of my classes the teacher asks me in front of the students about my weekend and we have a conversation about it (so the students learn how to hold a conversation smoothly). No one cares.

   I’m sorry about your situation. I would lose my mind. If you need someone to hype about your trips you can message me lol

9. Fine, my colleagues are giving me travel tips for where I’m going haha

10. I have a teacher who doesn’t even take her kids to the local Tsutaya and a couple of my kids have mentioned that their families still don’t go to restaurants in the city (~1 hour away). My area’s pretty cautious. I do know one teacher who’s traveled within the prefecture recently and one who’s going out of prefecture for his honeymoon.

    I’m in the US right now. I didn’t mention I was going unless someone asked and then I made sure to follow up with “I’m going to see my family who I haven’t seen in 3 years,” and people seemed ok with it. I had a couple of people tell me that seeing family is understandable but they personally wouldn’t be comfortable doing international leisure travel right now, and like, same.

11. I am at an elemntary school Nagasaki and even though cases are going up no one cares about if you travel or not, a few teachers are going to tokyo, im going to the US.

12. School doesn’t care at all. Hell, there was a kokugo teacher at my school who recently came back from South Korea after 5 days. As long as we’re safe, doesn’t interfere with work (it’s summer so no), no one legit cares.

    I’m going back home to America for 10 days soon and all my school told me was have fun and be safe lol and in the event I can’t get in the plane back to japan because of a positive Covid test, just let my supervisor know so they can put the COVID leave on my attendance sheet. I don’t start teaching again until late September, so my schedule is pretty free until then.

13. The only thing my school cares about if I go travelling is what kind of Omiyage I’m bringing back.

    I’m totally open about travelling at school. In fact my students are going on three different international trips this summer with teachers as chaperones. We all talk openly about travelling and the other staff are actually really cool about helping me plan any trips I want to take with lots of recommendations.

14. Our BoE sent out an email a while ago that said inter-prefectural travel was essentially forbidden for AETs in my prefecture due to Covid-19 and that we could be terminated for violating these safety precautions. But no one follows that rule and nothing has ever been done about it. As far as I know they have not revised that rule either.

15. My elementary schools and BOE don’t care, but our junior high wants to know every single thing my coworker and i plan on doing. It feels really invasive

16. Public schools don’t make policy like this, or if they do, the principal is a jerk. Instead, the CO might have a handwavy stance.

    The bosses can’t stop you, and you should not go out of your way to tell them. Talk with your friendly coworkers normally and go on with life. Be safe as reasonable in your own view. Observe quarantine requests if possible. 3 days isn’t so long.

17. Inside the prefecture you’re probably fine, outside it depends on how strict you’ve noticed your schools are. That being said I guarantee most of your school will probably travel home for Obon so I wouldn’t worry unduly as long as you take preventative measures.

    My schools asked me every break if I’d gone home to America over the holidays LOL.

18. I have teachers at my schools who are traveling outside the prefecture during summer. My BOE would ask us to disclose what prefecture we’re going to, but that has always been a rule since I got here before COVID (in case of an emergency while you’re traveling so they know where you are).

    Personally, I tend to keep it to myself. But when teachers ask me if I have any plans during vacation, I feel uncomfortable lying to their face so I tell them that I’m traveling.

19. My school is in the middle I think. We had a school-wide trip to an amusement park a few months ago (it caused an outbreak in our school though) and my students and teachers are still traveling for club events and 修学旅行. However, we often have morning meetings about student infections, students have to eat silently during lunch, etc.

    I do know that (some of) my teachers continue to go out to eat and live normally, but it’s really hard to gauge what level is acceptable to who. My supervisor though…she’s extremely COVID-conscious and a helicopter mom in general, so I had to set a lot of boundaries and I no longer tell her about my travel plans. There was one time I told a student I was eating dinner at my friend’s apartment (she lives in the same apartment complex, it was only the two of us), and my supervisor gave me a long Covid lecture about it 😮‍💨 I will say it saves me a lot of money on omiyage at least.

20. My school and BoE haven’t mentioned anything against travels, and a couple of the other ALTs in my city have travelled abroad this summer without any restrictions or complaints from the BoE. I don’t think anyone here is too worried about it.

    I don’t think your employer should be allowed to restrict what you do in your own free time at the weekends, and it’s none of their business really. As long as you are careful and are following all the official guidance from the government, that’s all you should need to do and I don’t think legally they can enforce things like that three day isolation thing unless they’re giving you extra paid leave for it (and if they’re not, then either don’t comply or make a formal complaint, because that’s just totally unreasonable).

21. DAIKKYU

    Now that I have your attention. You can travel and continue to collect salary and not burn any nenkkyu if you go to a language school over the summer to study Japanese. I did this each summer – just pick a city you want to move to for a month and find a language school. Since you are there technically for “training” your BoE will cover this under daikkyu (special leave).

22. My school only seem to care when it could be an inconvenience to them. I went to a neighbouring town to visit a friend a few months ago and turns out the person I met there had COVID. I had to let my school know so they’d help me get tested and their reaction was like “PLACE NAME?! What were you doing there?”, even though lots of teachers from the school live there and it’s like half an hour away. I’ve travelled further in the prefecture since and teachers have thought it was cool and have wanted to know what I thought about it. However, I asked one of the teachers what he was going to go over Obon and he said he was worried about traveling because of COVID, so I’m going to keep the fact that I took a plane to Honshu quiet…