Viewing topic: Samantha School - Work there at your own risk!

Hello!

I am new to this forum, and I wanted to warn the folks out there looking for a teaching job in Moscow to be cautious about accepting a position at the Samantha School.

I worked there in 2000-2001 and the Director of the school (Helen) made my life a living hell. I arrived in Moscow on my own visa, but when I got a job at the school she insisted that I change my visa so that Samantha School would be my sponsor. Huge mistake. Once she had control of my visa I was doomed. After a few months of working there, we had a disagreement and things really started to go down hill. She would yell at me in front of other instructors, insult my teaching abilities, and insult me personally. She accused me of stealing from her and said very ugly things about Americans. The fact that I was trapped with a school sponsored visa did not help the situation.

I managed to secure a new visa (cost a lot of money, had to go to Estonia to do it) through the help of a new employer with whom I keep in touch to this day. I can tell you that another teacher whom I met at the school (a fellow American) was fired becuase she called out sick due to bronchtitis. She found out that she was fired through her host family. Helen left a phone message saying "don't come back." How professional.

This teacher and I are friends to this day, living only an hour apart here in the U.S. We joke about the whole bronchitis thing now, but as you can imagine, it wasn't quite so funny at the time. PLEASE be careful when dealing with this school. I learned my lesson the hard way.

Hi Been There,

Please check and tell me if this is the right school: Samantha School

If so, please re-post your review there. If not, please let me know so I can remove the reference.

Interesting - I did a Google search which *seemed* to come up with a likely URL for the school in top position, but with a warning that opening the page could damage my computer (i.e. it would attmept to load malware onto my machine).

The search url is this link here

Whatever will dodgy schools come up with next?

Hi:

The website for the school is www.samantha.ru. The first link you posted doesn't give me enough information to determine if it is the Samantha School (there might possibly be more than one). The one I am referring to is run by Helen Nezhivaya.

FYI, I posted my Samantha School experience on another web forum in response to someone else's comment about the school. This seemed to open the floodgates as other former teachers responded to the thread with stories very similar to mine.

The website administrator then posted a message letting us all know that the director of the Samantha School, Helen, contacted him and asked that the thread be locked or removed! Very disturbing. He refused to do so, but welcomed her to post her own message to refute the allegations. Helen did respond, personally attacking some of the former teachers. To be fair, a Samantha School teacher did post a message saying that his experience has been primarily positive, but did witness Helen verbally abusing other teachers.

Overall the negative comments are definitely outweighing the positive ones.

The name matches the info for that school, but if you worked there don't you recognise the address?

A link to the thread on the other forum would be welcome.

Yep, that is the school. Because of Google's warning that it may attempt to infect computers with malware (!) I won't be posting its web address as a link. But it is indeed www.samantha.ru - visit at your own risk folks

I found the thread on WTR.net - familiar story.

I worked there 7 years ago, so hopefully it is understandable that I don't remember the address. I remember the metro stop, though, and even remember that it is on the orange line!

I forgot to add the link to the WTR thread in my last post. Here it is:

http://www.waytorussia.net/TalkLounge/conversation3953.html

That link in clickable form: http://www.waytorussia.net/TalkLounge/conversation3953.html

Since you worked there so long ago I'd have to ask you not to add a review in the directory, but comments from anyone with experience from within the last 12 months or so are very welcome.

Sadly, schools like these are just a part of the system. Like nasty viruses, they don't go away - just disappear for a while then pop up again somewhere else