After a slow summer, readership is back up. We are approaching 24,000 views as of the writing of this post. We have had over 3,600 unique devices visit the site from a variety of countries. Obviously, most of our visitors are from Kuwait, but we have readers on every continent and we seem to add visitors from new countries every day.

In fact, just yesterday, we had 45 visits from Greece, a country from which we have not previously had traffic.

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We look forward to continuing to provide news and information about the goings-on at the American School of Kuwait, and thank you for reading our posts.

Several sources have contacted us and indicated that three teachers are out already. The details differ a bit – one tells us that one teacher was fired and two quit, while another tells us that two were fired and one quit. Either way, we can confirm that three are gone. Two of these teachers are from the high school math department, which you may remember had not hired all of its positions for the year.

This means that the HS Math department is three teachers short. We here at The American School of Kuwait Reviews are very curious as to how all of those classes are being covered, since our sources tell us that the HS Math Department has had unfilled vacancies for several years in a row and that many of the teachers that are left in the department are being asked to cover a large amount of the slack, leaving them little planning time.

We have heard from one parent expressing extreme displeasure that their student doesn’t have a math teacher currently. We would love to hear from more stakeholders about that current situation. Let’s hope that ASK can find some people to plug the holes, or they are going to have to get crazy and have their history teachers start teaching math.

Survey 6 asked current ASK teachers for their thoughts on the new start times, and the results are in. The questions asked you to rate your feelings about the start times on a scale from 1 (Hate) to 5 (Love). While no teachers responded with 5, we did receive two responses of 4 and one response of 3. Five respondents rated the start times a 2 and seven ranked at a 1. If the new start times had a rating on Amazon, it would look like this:

There was the option to leave a message, but only one respondent did so. They stated:

“To get into school at a reasonable hour, we have to leave Mahboula at 6.00am. We often won’t get home until past 4.00pm. We barely see our children. I suspect quite a few people won’t be coming back after Winter Break.”

Thank you to all those who participated in the survey – we hope you will continue to participate, read, and comment.

It looks like Kuwait is ready to start enforcing even more parking rules – read carefully so that you don’t lose your plate and have to collect it from the police station while paying a hefty fine.

Parking in street level designated parking is acceptable, but otherwise, buildings with basement parking are required to use it. Kuwait is set to begin fining building owners that are not using their basement parking for actual parking. Other fines will be levied for having apartments on basement levels, which is also not permitted. Cars parked illegally will have their plates removed – you can collect your plate at the local police station and pay a fine.

It’s a good thing that there are two large parking areas underground at the Dunes. Good luck, everybody.

News and information on how to sue your landlor if they do not permit you to park in your building’s basement-level parking:

http://news.kuwaittimes.net/website/basements-only-for-parking/

We are happy to announce a positive change at the American School of Kuwait: A later start time. See the letter from Wael A. Abdul Ghafoor, Chairman / CEO, below:

It is well documented that later start times at school lead to both an increase and performance and students getting more sleep. While many teachers tend to be cynical and think that their students will just stay up later, the research shows this is not the case for a vast majority of students. Below are some links for you to get more information:

Late Start Times Really Do Improve Sleep Time – Science Daily

Later School Start Times – National Sleep Foundation

Some teachers have contacted us and said that, because the teacher housing is so far away in Mahboula, combined with the very bad traffic around school, they are only getting to leave 5-15 minutes later in order to take a trip that takes 20 minutes longer at that time. Many of the school’s students live in neighborhoods close to the school and are less affected by the traffic on Highway 30 – we hope these teachers will see the benefits that students receive from this and support the change with positive attitudes. Remember – you can choose how you feel – don’t be an energy vampire.

Kudos to the school for being able to make what was certainly a difficult decision, but one that will benefit all of their students for a very long time. Let us know your thoughts in the comments below – (remember – comments are anonymous).