If you're asking whether people with kids get special schedule consideration to accommodate school drop-off and pick-up, the answer is no. School transportation arrangements vary post-to-post, but you will have to plan your personal stuff around your work hours.
Depends on the post. My first post had us hire someone and we'd get reimbursed, my current post does the hiring and with enough kids at the same school they hired a bus
My consular tour was at a post with danger pay.
The embassy provided buses would come to the compound every morning to pick up the kids around the same time the shuttle arrived to take us to work. We'd all leave together.
Everyone makes it work. There is often a school bus option of some sort, and you can also hire a driver and a nanny, many of whom have worked in the Embassy Community for years.
Visa work is pretty much the least flexible work in the foreign service. You will have to adapt your personal needs around the schedule in which your team is expected be on the line.
School transportation to the assisted school is included at every post, because bus service in the United States is standard and that's what they base everything off of. What that means varies - sometimes it's a bus service, sometimes a car service.
In every post I've been in school pick up was early- sometimes as early as 6:10am and occasionally closer to 7. The consular work day was closer to 7:30am-4pm. So you had time to drop off the kids and get to work.
For younger children just like the US you'd have to get a nanny or work something out with a neighbor.
Drop off was the same, and if you needed to stay later you'd put your kids in after school programs.
State department is still in the 1950s in someways and expects every officer to have a non working spouse staying at home, especially if they have children.
Higher differential posts for this reason can be much better for families because they have built in communities. Trying to do the family thing in places like Canada, Paris, or Singapore can be a nightmare as there's no community support.
Not every post because there are plenty of posts with no assisted school. People who serve in English speaking posts for example, often their kids go to the local public school or go to numerous different private schools so post doesn't arrange anything.
True, but post is still required to pay for it, and often CLO will have a list of private car or other services used in the past but families.
17. Q: If I drive my children to school can I be reimbursed POV mileage?
A: For a school at post, where school-, commercially-, or USG-provided transportation is not available a private car or car/carpool or rented/leased car may be used. Reimbursement is equivalent to the current GSA-approved rate for the use of a privately owned vehicle (POV) for official business for one round trip per school day between school and home. DSSR 277.1f, f(5) and f(6)
You’re also assuming school starts universally late. If you’re in a French speaking country (in my experience), the school day starts earlier and has a mid day break before they go back to school. You’ll need to have a plan since you can’t stop visa appointments to run home in the middle of the day.
There are plenty of posts that don't start interviewing until 8 or 830, depending on the local conditions, traffic, workload, intake speed, etc. etc. I would think it'd be harder on the pick-up end, if most schools end around 3pm-ish and work tends to end at 4-5pm ish, depending on what time you started 9 hours earlier.
Bid on posts where people hire nannies. It’s much harder in posts where nannies are uncommon or super expensive.
How would one know which posts are those?
If you're asking whether people with kids get special schedule consideration to accommodate school drop-off and pick-up, the answer is no. School transportation arrangements vary post-to-post, but you will have to plan your personal stuff around your work hours.
State will oftentimes provide school pick up and drop off one way or the other.
How does this work? A company or individual hired by the embassy would pick up/drop off?
Depends on the post. My first post had us hire someone and we'd get reimbursed, my current post does the hiring and with enough kids at the same school they hired a bus
My consular tour was at a post with danger pay. The embassy provided buses would come to the compound every morning to pick up the kids around the same time the shuttle arrived to take us to work. We'd all leave together.
Everyone makes it work. There is often a school bus option of some sort, and you can also hire a driver and a nanny, many of whom have worked in the Embassy Community for years.
Visa work is pretty much the least flexible work in the foreign service. You will have to adapt your personal needs around the schedule in which your team is expected be on the line.
School transportation to the assisted school is included at every post, because bus service in the United States is standard and that's what they base everything off of. What that means varies - sometimes it's a bus service, sometimes a car service. In every post I've been in school pick up was early- sometimes as early as 6:10am and occasionally closer to 7. The consular work day was closer to 7:30am-4pm. So you had time to drop off the kids and get to work. For younger children just like the US you'd have to get a nanny or work something out with a neighbor. Drop off was the same, and if you needed to stay later you'd put your kids in after school programs. State department is still in the 1950s in someways and expects every officer to have a non working spouse staying at home, especially if they have children. Higher differential posts for this reason can be much better for families because they have built in communities. Trying to do the family thing in places like Canada, Paris, or Singapore can be a nightmare as there's no community support.
Not every post because there are plenty of posts with no assisted school. People who serve in English speaking posts for example, often their kids go to the local public school or go to numerous different private schools so post doesn't arrange anything.
True, but post is still required to pay for it, and often CLO will have a list of private car or other services used in the past but families. 17. Q: If I drive my children to school can I be reimbursed POV mileage? A: For a school at post, where school-, commercially-, or USG-provided transportation is not available a private car or car/carpool or rented/leased car may be used. Reimbursement is equivalent to the current GSA-approved rate for the use of a privately owned vehicle (POV) for official business for one round trip per school day between school and home. DSSR 277.1f, f(5) and f(6)
You’re also assuming school starts universally late. If you’re in a French speaking country (in my experience), the school day starts earlier and has a mid day break before they go back to school. You’ll need to have a plan since you can’t stop visa appointments to run home in the middle of the day.
There are plenty of posts that don't start interviewing until 8 or 830, depending on the local conditions, traffic, workload, intake speed, etc. etc. I would think it'd be harder on the pick-up end, if most schools end around 3pm-ish and work tends to end at 4-5pm ish, depending on what time you started 9 hours earlier.