Great to see you, thank you for your interest!
It is with great pleasure that I welcome you and your family to the International School of Debrecen, where we are driven by our mission to build an international community that inspires and empowers its students to become innovative leaders of positive change.
ISD is a young school, established in 2019. It is incredibly exciting to observe the school grow in parallel with the other major developments in the region.
Every school bases its success on the collaborative efforts of teachers and parents, and we are fortunate to have a community of caring parents to help support us as we aim to provide the best possible education to every student in our care. I hope that you will consider joining that community.
Tom McLean,
ISD Director
We are an international community that shapes the future of learning, empowers innovation and inspires positive action, to effect change locally and globally.
ISD students are Curious, Creative, Caring Changemakers.
History
- Founded in 2019, ISD is a young school that has already reached significant milestones. It became Hungary’s first IB Continuum School in 2024 and achieved NEASC accreditation in 2025, reflecting its commitment to high international standards and continuous improvement of students between the ages 3-18.
- The school’s 5-hectare campus is located next to the Great Forest in Debrecen. Its modern facilities, combined with expansive green surroundings, create an inspiring and supportive learning environment for both students and educators.
Campus and Location
- ISD is located in Pallag, a green residential area on the outskirts of Debrecen. With a population of approximately 203,000, Debrecen is Hungary’s second-largest city and a vibrant regional centre.
- Debrecen has its own international airport with direct connections to several European destinations, making travel around Central and Eastern Europe easy. Budapest is just two and a half hours away by train or car, and the Romanian border is only a 30-minute drive, offering quick access to the historic region of Transylvania.
- Hungary has a temperate, four-season climate, with warm summers, cold winters, and everything in between. The country is also considered one of the safest in the world, making Debrecen a secure, welcoming place to live and work.
Why Join ISD as an Educator?
- At ISD, teaching is more than a profession—it is a shared commitment to learning, growth, and community, set within a city that offers an outstanding quality of life and safety. Educators at ISD work in a values-driven, collaborative environment where clear professional standards, trust, and shared purpose support both professional success and personal well-being.
- ISD is a learning organization where collaboration, open communication, and mutual respect are central. Teachers are part of a vibrant professional learning community that values diversity, nurtures strong relationships, and recognizes individual strengths as drivers of collective growth. This commitment comes to life in our staff, who represent 26 nationalities and create a truly colorful and diverse teaching body. Professional development is intentional, differentiated, and ongoing, with structured mentoring for new teachers, autonomy for experienced educators, and targeted support when needed—ensuring growth through continuous reflection and practice.
- Pedagogy at ISD is grounded in IB approaches to teaching and learning and NEASC ACE Learning Principles. Educators are encouraged to design engaging, inquiry‑based experiences that foster creativity, critical thinking, and independence, while responding to students’ academic, social, and emotional needs. Assessment practices are purposeful and reflective, using timely feedback and clear learning goals to support continuous improvement for both students and teachers.
- Beyond the classroom, ISD offers the advantage of living and working in Debrecen, Hungary’s second-largest city—an increasingly international, affordable, and welcoming place to call home. Debrecen combines rich cultural heritage with modern infrastructure, a thriving university community, and a growing international workforce. The city’s parks, gardens, and the Great Forest (Nagyerdő) provide easy access to nature, recreation, and relaxation, while museums, festivals, cafés, and cultural venues offer a vibrant social and cultural life.
- With its strong educational landscape, expanding career opportunities, and excellent work–life balance, Debrecen supports educators in building a fulfilling professional and personal life. At ISD, teachers are trusted as professionals, supported as individuals, and valued as essential contributors to a dynamic international community.
Meet your future colleagues, hear their stories!
Get to know the people behind our classrooms and hear why teaching at ISD and living in Debrecen truly makes a difference.
Whit Altizer
Whit brings a wealth of international experience and a deep passion for student support to the ISD community as the MS-HS Counselor. Having lived and worked across the US, South Korea, and the Northern Mariana Islands, Whit will shares his diverse educational settings—from school counseling and mentoring at-risk youth to ESL and college guidance with his students. He lives in Debrecen with his wife and two children, who attend the school.
Oksana Matviishyna
Oksana brings over 25 years of international experience and a deep commitment to student-centered learning to ISD. Having worked in a range of IB schools, including Kyiv, Budapest, Belgium, and Bratislava, Oksana showcases every day how the IB framework empowers students to embark on meaningful journeys of discovery, reflection, and action. Her perspective highlights the role of collaboration, wellbeing and building strong academic foundations while nurturing creativity and global citizenship. Her daughter studies at ISD and her son was in the class of the first graduated students, living now in Brno.
Robert Sarty
As an I&S / History / English Language & Literature Teacher Robert Sarty brings a global perspective and a strong commitment to ISD. Having taught in Colombia and grown up as a third culture kid in cities such as Moscow and Beijing, Robert and as an International Baccalaureate graduate, he highlights the power of inquiry, adaptability, and student agency in preparing young people for an ever-changing world. His approach focuses on building meaningful relationships, understanding student interests, and creating engaging learning environments that support both personal and academic growth.
Debrecen is a great place to live. Check out the details of this amazing city.
Strategic Priorities
- High-quality learning
- Belonging
- Strategic governance
- World class infrastructure
- Sustainable finance
School wide priorities (SWPs)
ISD SWPs are derived from our strategic priorities. The 2025/26 SWP is to ‘build a shared understanding of high-quality learning’ and has the following objectives and desired results. Our Objectives are:
1. Strengthen alignment between professional growth and the 4Cs.
2. Embed the 4Cs into student goal setting and self-reflection.
3. Develop portfolios as a tool for demonstrating high-quality learning.
We aim to achieve that:
- 100% of faculty demonstrate their learning from a PGP
- 80% of ES students showcase growth in 4Cs in portfolios
- 70% of MS/HS students upload portfolio artifacts linked to the 4Cs
- Baseline and follow-up surveys show 20% growth in shared understanding of high quality learning
The draft SWP for the 2026/27 school year is focused on ‘belonging’. The major focus will be to further develop our integrated approach to student support services that is whole child focused and ensures that all students are appropriately challenged and supported.
A Place where you can thrive.
Professional Growth
Empowering Educators. Enriching Learning.
At ISD professional growth is purposeful, collaborative, and deeply connected to student learning. Our Professional Growth System is inspired by the teacher self-supervision model developed by Bill and Ochen Powell and reflects our belief, echoed by Kevin Bartlett, that shared vision is more powerful than supervision, evaluation alone does not lead to growth, and collaboration always outperforms compliance.
Professional growth at ISD is built on the following foundations:
- We assume professional competence and trust in teachers as reflective practitioners.
- Growth is expected of everyone and is both an individual and collective process.
- Meaningful development is cyclical, requiring action, reflection, and adaptation.
- Teachers benefit from differentiated approaches to supervision and growth.
- Personal professional goals are aligned with school standards and current priorities.
- Accountability for growth is embedded within the system, not imposed externally.
The 4Cs: Impact Over Input
At ISD, the success of professional learning is measured not by attendance or hours, but by its impact on student learning. Our approach is grounded in clear learner impact statements derived from the ISD Graduate Profile and a shared understanding of high-quality learning—designed to develop caring, curious, creative changemakers.
Your Personalized Growth Journey
Each year, all ISD educators engage in at least one Professional Growth Plan (PGP) cycle. This process allows teachers to:
- Choose a learning partner (colleague) to act in a coaching capacity
- Choose one of the 4C learner impact statements
- Discuss the 4C learner impact rubric descriptors with their students and determine what exemplary performance looks like, sounds like, feels like and how it can be measured
- Identify learning resources and engage in professional learning
- Develop and implement a time-bound learning plan
- Gather baseline, midpoint and end of cycle data to determine the impact on their students
- Share their learning with the ISD community
This reflective, teacher‑driven model ensures that professional growth is relevant, purposeful, and directly connected to learner impacts. ISD teachers can clearly articulate how their students are living the school mission and developing our graduate profile attributes on a day to day basis.
Funding Your Learning
ISD supports educators in pursuing high‑quality professional development through the Professional Learning Fund. Teachers may apply for financial assistance to participate in workshops, courses, conferences, and other learning opportunities.
Applications are reviewed based on:
- Clarity of learning outcomes
- A thoughtful plan to assess impact
- Alignment with school‑wide priorities
- A commitment to share new learning with colleagues
Explore our Vacancies
If you are seeking an innovative learning environment and are a student-centered, growth-minded educator, we invite you to have a look at our job vacancies for teachers to join our…
