SP-F German Students Get OK to Go Abroad

Scotch Plains-Fanwood High's German language students are particularly thankful this holiday season, now that the Board of Education has approved their trip to Germany for next summer.

The students were privileged to participate in an exchange program this fall with about a dozen 11th grade students and two English teachers from Johannes Kepler Gymnasium, an elite secondary school in Stuttgart, Germany. The German students spent two weeks in Scotch Plains-Fanwood, staying with their New Jersey counterparts and experiencing many firsts — an American high school, New York City and Halloween, among other things.

At last week's Board of Education meeting, several of the SP-F students and their parents shared how rewarding the experience was for them and asked for permission to go visit their new friends in their home next June.

"Truthfully this is something I as a teacher could never replicate in the classroom," said Dorothy Orme, the high school German teacher who helped coordinate the exhange. "The goal was to enrich and edify the students."

This wasn't the first time Scotch Plains-Fanwood High has participated in such a program. The school shared a similar exhange in 2004 with a gymansium in Sanhausen, Germany. The idea for the exchange this year came up when Orme interacted with Sybille Hoffmann, one of the teachers from Germany who had been to the United States on a Fulbright grant, had applied for a job at SP-F High School, and was interested in establishing it as a "sister school."

For the SP-F students who participated, the experience was more than just a way to learn about another culture. It was also the chance ot make life-long friends.

"I was really shocked at how many similarities we had," one girl said of her bond with her exchange student. "I talk to her almost every day now."

The board originally planned to wait until its Dec. 17 meeting to officially approve the trip, but decided to go ahead and vote in favor of it at last week's meeting, caught up in the spirit after listening to the students speak.

"This really is well within what we're trying to do with our strategic plan in regards to global perspectives," said Superintendent Margaret Hayes. "This is the epitome of what can be done."

The trip will likely take place a few weeks after school lets out in June. It will be fully funded by the students' parents and possibly through fundraising, all at no cost to the school district.

When asked by Board President Trip Whitehouse whether they minded the fact that the trip would extend their school year a few weeks after the official last day in June, the students all smiled and said "not at all."