As the new school year gets started, new students enter the halls. Anyone from the incoming freshmen to admin and returning students may or may not have yet met this year’s exchange students. This year’s exchange students are from Germany, Brazil, Spain and Poland.
One of the new exchange students who was selected by the exchange program was Hannes Jehle (11) who is from Germany. “I have had a good experience so far and got to meet some cool people, and I am really enjoying playing soccer with some of the students here,” Jehle said.
As the school year kicks off, the students are already making a big impact as they share their unique perspectives in classrooms, participating in various clubs and introducing their language into the German classrooms. Hunter Palumbo (11) who was helping Jehle in his culinary class has found it easy to become friends. “I’m in pro start so I was helping Hannes in his culinary class,” Palumbo stated. “He was super nice and I enjoyed talking to him.”
One of the co-sponsors in the German exchange program is Carol Ward (staff) who is helping give the German exchange students the best experience possible. Although the students are attending the school, their schedule looks a little different from the average student.
Ward said, “We try to get them involved in all the fun classes such as PE so that they can play like kickball and then we try to get them in a culinary class so they can cook in the kitchen.”
Although the school is grateful that the students have decided to come here, the process to get the students here is long. This process started in January of the 2023-24 school year so that they could come here for part of the 2024 year.
“The German school and their sponsors organize who can come on their end, and then we get profiles of each of the kids so we can match some of the profiles to our kids and then we communicate with them in January and encourage the kids to start communicating early so that it makes the transition easier,” Ward said.
Altogether the program tries its best to make a smooth transition for both the exchange students selected and the host students who have volunteered to take the exchange students under their wings. This provides more than just an academic experience but also a cultural experience that will leave a lasting impression on the wizard community.
According to Ward, this program has exceeded expectations thus far and she is grateful that the exchange students have helped show the community a new perspective.
