Benefits of Membership
ACAMIS is a unique membership organization, founded by members and governed by members with the benefits designed at the suggestion of members to assist with their needs.
- ACAMIS offers a range of Academic and Cultural Enrichment (ACE) activities designed to provide an extra dimension of growth and experience
- Fourteen post-season sports based on a philosophy of personal growth, friendship, and different experiences are offered to stretch students beyond their self-perceived limits
- Cost effective professional development through events that rotate annually from north, central and south, further reducing travel costs
- Five Annual Conferences on topics of most interest to our schools include: Spring Leadership Conference; the major Chinese Conference in Asia; Early Childhood Education; English Language Learners; and Technology that works in China
- ACAMIS Conference Planning Committees consisting of nominated teachers in ACAMIS who design the content for the five conferences.
- Ten to twelve annual Workshops for Specialist and Supporting Staff conducted for ACAMIS by PD Academia
- PD Links, an ACAMIS webpage containing universities and other organizations that offer a range of professional development for the individual teacher such as credential renewal, credential building, advanced degrees, summer programs, all in one location for one-stop PD shopping and is updated and distributed three times annually
- A diverse membership with many types of schools, but with a common purpose of serving an international community with an international education
- Professional networking and sharing
- An ACAMIS logo and Membership Certificate to inform your community of professional organization membership.
Obligations of Membership
Members in good standing will:
- Complete the annual Excel Database for your key school positions by mid-September
- Submit the annual membership payment by October 1
- Designate an Academic and Cultural Enrichment (ACE) representative (volunteer) to coordinate information about student activities
- Designate a Professional Development representative (volunteer)
- At the end of the school year, inform ACAMIS if you, as Head of School, will be leaving and who the new Head will be
- Plan for the Head, Athletics Director and Academic and Cultural Enrichment (ACE) representatives to attend the annual Spring Leadership Conference
- Meet our legal requirement as a membership organization that the Head or a designated representative attend the Annual General Meeting (AGM) at the Spring Leadership Conference
- Make your staff aware of the Five annual ACAMIS Conferences designed to meet needs of students
- Encourage and support teachers to serve on ACAMIS Planning Committees as the opportunity arises
- Participate in hosting events when possible
- Ask their IT Manager to ensure emails from ACAMIS do not get caught in Spam filters. ACAMIS sends from the following email addresses:
- operations@acamis.org
- finance@acamis.org
- ed@acamis.org
- quickbooks@notification.intuit.com
- noreply@acamis.myenotice.com
- Make payment for ACAMIS membership fee or event registration via credit card or request invoices to process US dollar international wire transfer. To reduce paperwork and process only one wire transfer payment, we strongly recommend that the school appoint a PD Coordinator to make all online registrations for a conference or workshop to enable receipt of a single invoice and avoid time-consuming individual wire transfer payments.
- Inform staff of the PD application/payment process periodically.
Membership Levels
Full Member Status entitles schools who wish to participate in all ACAMIS offerings – including student sports, cultural enrichment (ACE) and other activities and professional development events.
- Access to other international schools in the region, networking and professional association
- Reduced registration rates for ACAMIS professional development events
- ANNUAL FEE: $2,000 USD
Provisional Membership
A school that meets all the ACAMIS Membership criteria above except for final accreditation as stated in item 2 of the Membership Standards, but which is in the process of such independent external evaluation, may be admitted into Provisional Membership status after submitting its application, completion of the site visit and submission of an official letter from a recognized accreditation agency or other ACAMIS approved external evaluation agency acknowledging readiness to enter the school evaluation process. Provisional Membership will only be granted based on the presentation of a scheduled plan for the realisation of such external evaluation in meeting the ACAMIS criteria.
Conditions of Provisional Status
- Provisional Membership status will normally be granted for no longer than two years along with the requirement that the school adhere to its schedule for meeting full membership criteria. Any variation to this schedule must be communicated to the ACAMIS Executive Director with specific reasons given for the change.
- The ACAMIS Board reserves the right to rescind Provisional status at any time should there be sufficient reason to doubt that a school is able to meet its commitment.
- Schools with Provisional Membership status must pay the same annual fee as those with Full Membership status. Memberships activated after January 1 will be required to pay 1/2 annual membership fee for the remainder of that academic year.
- Heads or other representatives of Provisional status schools may not vote or hold ACAMIS office on the ACAMIS Board of Directors or serve on any ACAMIS committees until they have achieved full comprehensive member status.
- Provisional status schools may not use the ACAMIS logo in or on any of their school promotional materials or for commercial purposes.