Fort Lee District Partners with Korean School to Exchange Students, Teachers

Fort Lee High School will host about twenty Korean exchange students and two teachers from South Korea for a month starting in February in what school officials hope will become a yearly exchange. In July, Fort Lee will reciprocate, sending twenty students and two faculty members of its own to Seokang High School in Kwangju, South Korea.

The exchange is part of the Fort Lee School District's new "First in the World" initiative, offering Fort Lee students and teachers the opportunity to study in Korea and host visiting Korean students and teachers through partnerships with some of Korea's top public and private schools.

The agreement with Seokang High School was completed when Fort Lee Superintendent Raymond Bandlow, along with Dr. Peter Jeong of Bloomfield College, who specializes in setting up educational exchanges between Korea and other countries, visited Korea late last month and early this month on a weeklong, three-city tour. It was Bandlow's second such journey of the year to Asia after a similar trip to Japan over the summer.

He said the program is all about instilling a sense of "global competition" in Fort Lee students.

"Even though we are a very international school in many ways, probably like most of the country, we talk a good game of global competition, but we really don't practice it very much," Bandlow said.

The school district estimates that about 40 percent of students in Fort Lee schools are of Korean descent and that more than half are of Asian descent, including smaller groups of Japanese, Chinese and others. Kids in the district speak an estimated 60 different languages, and many speak a language other than English at home.

"It makes for a very interesting mix of kids in the schools," Bandlow said. "It's a real lively dynamic of kids who are pretty motivated and do very well."

But, he said, what he witnessed firsthand on his trips to Japan and Korea this year made him realize that they could be motivated to do even better.

"I'm just impressed with how [students in Japan and Korea] see global competition," he said. "They live it. They know they're competing with the rest of the world, and they're trying to build their country up with the rest of the world."

While in Korea, Bandlow and Jeong, who speaks fluent Korean and translated for Bandlow, held intensive meetings with policy makers from Korea's National Ministry of Education and National Ministry of Labor, in addition to officials at Seokang University, Seokang High School, EWHA Women's University, the Busan Metropolitan City Office of Education and several Korean school districts.

Bandlow said he was pleased to find that the Korean officials he met with were interested in supporting exchanges and partnerships with Fort Lee's schools, noting that Seokang High School in particular has seen success in the past with exchange programs in other countries.

"We can take advantage of the partnerships and their eagerness to partner with us," he said. "They want to be involved with the U.S. schools in the worst way. It's a very good marriage."

Under the agreement, Seokang will send about 20 students a year to Fort Lee during their winter recess. Those students will rotate during their one-month stay among Fort Lee High School's three specialty programs: the Academy of Finance, the International Baccalaureate (IB) program and the Academy of Performing Arts.

"For all intents and purposes they're auditing the classes, so they get a taste of what some of our specialties are," Bandlow said, adding that the school district is currently arranging home-stays in the community for the entire group.

Then in July it's Fort Lee's turn to complete the exchange. Twenty sophomores and juniors on their summer break and two faculty members will spend a month at Seokang High School, staying in the school's dormitories and taking classes taught in English by Korean teachers.

Bandlow said the group, which will be chosen through an application process, won't necessarily include only top students or only kids of Korean descent.

"We'd like to send a good mix," he said. "We may give preference to kids who are in the IB or Academy of Finance programs, but we'll see who applies."

Noting that the notion of a foreign exchange program has been around for a long time, Bandlow said the "First in the World" initiative takes it to a new level given its impressive numbers and specific goal of global competitiveness.

"You've got 20 kids a year," he said. "That's a significant number of kids. It has a much greater impact. And then you start sending a couple of teachers here and there. So it starts to have an impact on your staff too. What I want our people to be thinking is not to be first in New Jersey, not to be first in Bergen County, but we are competing with the world. And that's what all of this is all about."