How To Change Your TAPIF Placement
Though Jalen and I had a wonderful time participating in the Teaching Assistant Program in France (TAPIF), the process wasn’t all fun and games. We encountered our first TAPIF roadblock in the summer of 2019 when we received our original school placements. Keep reading to find out what happened and how we resolved the issue.
TAPIF Placement Explained
During the application process for TAPIF, candidates rank their preferred placements in France by Académie.
After all applications are submitted, the program determines assistant placement in these regions of France beginning with the most qualified applicants. When an applicant is hired, they receive their regional placement in April with their acceptance email. Next, the individual Académies decide school placements for each assistant. The FAQ page of the TAPIF website states the following about applying as a couple:
“If both people are accepted to the program on their individual merits, only then will [TAPIF] take couple status into account (when making placement decisions)…If both people are accepted into the program and placed in the same region, then it is up to the school district to make the specific town and school assignments. The Académies usually do their best to keep couples together.”
TAPIF FAQ
TAPIF also recommends that couples consider indicating less popular Académies on their applications to increase the chances of being placed together. Luckily, our top choice fell into this category, and we both ranked the Académie de Reims as number one on our applications.
Confident about our qualifications, Jalen and I were reasonably sure we would be placed into the same region after indicating our couple status on our individual applications and choosing an Académie in lower demand as our top choice. We were hopeful that we wouldn’t have any issues as long as we both were placed in the same Académie, especially after reading in the FAQ that Académies make an effort to keep couples together.
Receiving our Placements
On April 9th, 2019, Jalen and I both received our TAPIF acceptance letters, and we were both placed in our top-choice region, the Académie de Reims. We were ecstatic! At this point, we thought that our worries about placement were over, and felt sure that since the Académies did their best to keep couples together, we were out of the woods.
As you may have already guessed, we were dead wrong! On July 12th, 2019, Jalen and I received our specific school placements by email from an administrator at the rectorat (Board of Education) de Reims. I was placed in the capital of the region, Reims, while Jalen was placed in a small town outside of Troyes called Bar-sur-Aube. After the initial surprise wore off, we began to do a bit of research. To our dismay, our placements were located about two hours away from each other by car with no direct train between the two cities. The disappointment began to set in as we realized that we might not be able to participate in the program together at all.
We decided to reach out to anyone and everyone that we could to describe our situation and hopefully find a solution. We composed emails explaining that we had indicated our couple status on our TAPIF applications and hoped to live together while participating in the program. We inquired if this would be a possibility given our placements, and asked if there was anything we could do to rectify the situation if not.
Initially, we contacted the administrator who had sent us our acceptance letters as well as the teachers listed as contacts on our placement letters. Our first response came from one of my teachers, who confirmed our fears: Our placements were incompatible with living together during the program. This teacher suggested that the Académie may not have taken our couple status into account, recommended that we contact the person in charge of language assistants at the rectorat, and even sent an email themselves to help us out. We sent off those emails and remained hopeful.
On July 24th, 2019, we received an email back from the rectorat promising to find a solution for us. The email stated that the rectorat would be closed for a month for summer vacation, and that we should expect to hear back about our situation at the end of August. Even though a month seemed like a long time to wait in uncertainty – and the wait would also significantly delay our visa application process – we were relieved to know that the rectorat was willing to work with us.
On August 30th, 2019, I received my new placement letter. This time, I was placed in Troyes, the beautiful city in close proximity to Jalen’s placement in Bar-sur-Aube. My placement was switched with another assistant’s who was originally placed in Troyes but asked to work in Reims – creating a perfect swap that benefitted everyone. With my new placement, we would have no issue living together in Troyes. Words cannot describe the relief we felt! We were finally able to feel excited and less stressed about our move to France. Though we never quite found out why the Académie didn’t place us nearer in the first place, we were – and still are! – extremely grateful for their willingness to work something out for us.
Main Takeaways
Jalen and I firmly believe that our situation may have been handled differently had we sent our emails without respecting French communication etiquette. Not only did we send our emails in French, but we also made sure to use polite language and include appropriate greetings and salutations. If you are in a similar situation with TAPIF, or need to contact your rectorat for any reason, we recommend that you take the time to proofread your emails and that you err on the side of over-politeness.
Contrary to popular myth, it’s not completely impossible to have your TAPIF placement changed. Our situation shows that given the right circumstances and a bit of luck, a placement change is achievable. This is not to say that any assistant who is unhappy with their placement will be moved. However, we do recommend advocating for yourself if you have a legitimate problem to be examined.
We hope this article sheds some light on one of the problems that we ran into during our TAPIF experience and gives future applicants looking to participate in TAPIF as a couple some useful information. If you have any questions or want to know more, let us know in a comment!
2 Comments
Holland
Hello!
I have enjoyed reading your blog immensely! I was recently placed in Drancy for this upcoming year. I spoke to previous assistants placed there and they said that safety was a real concern. I am really thinking about reaching out and seeing if I could get a new placement. Do you have any words of advice?
Jalen & Maria
Hello,
Thanks for reading our blog. We are glad you enjoy it! We would encourage you to read the “Can I choose where I get placed in France?” section of TAPIF’s Q&A page here: https://frenchhighereducation.org/teaching-assistant-program/prospective-applicants/faq
Given your circumstances and the information provided by TAPIF, it seems to us that your placement will likely remain unchanged.
Good luck and feel free to message us on Instagram with more questions if you have them.