Newtown Teachers And Students Prepare To Travel

To Chinese Partner School In April

By Eliza Hallabeck

Pizza was served in Newtown High School’s Lecture Hall on Tuesday, October 19, as the first meet and greet event for Newtown’s 2011 delegation scheduled to visit NHS’s Chinese sister school in April was underway.

NHS Assistant Principal and NHS sister school Program Coordinator Jason Hiruo said this week that the event was a success, and said his excitement is growing for the NHS and Liaocheng Middle School #3 partnership.

This year the program is expanding with delegates from Newtown Middle School, Reed Intermediate School, and NHS students visiting the Chinese sister school for the first time.

For Mr Hiruo the program began in the spring of 2008 when he and NHS social studies teacher Martha Parvis visited Liaocheng Middle School #3 to further a relationship Superintendent of Schools Janet Robinson had begun in November 2007, before she started her position in Newtown. Ms Parvis will be returning with the 2011 group for her second visit to the school.

Since then, multiple delegations from Liaocheng Middle School #3 have visited Newtown. Other school districts have also contacted Mr Hiruo to discuss how to form sister school relationships of their own.

Students from Liaocheng Middle School #3 have visited NHS before, but this is the first time a delegation from Newtown will include students.

The meet and greet event was held to help foster a family relationship, Mr Hiruo said, between the Newtown school district faculty members in the delegation and students.

NHS Junior Abbey Doski said the “mixer party” in the Lecture Hall was helping her meet other people, and reinforced Mr Hiruo’s concept of a family for the delegation.

“We are going to be a family when we go over to China,” she said.

Mr Hiruo said the feeling of being connected to the group will help when passing through airports and other checkpoints during the trip.

NHS Chinese exchange teacher Ding Hong also spoke during the meet and greet event to help prepare the group for the trip.

Abbey said the $3,000 cost for the trip was a small amount to pay for the experience.

NHS senior Austin Baldour said he heard about the program from participating in the exchange program last year when students and administrators from Liaocheng Middle School #3 visited NHS. Austin has kept in touch with students he met last year by e-mail over the course of the year, and said he may see some of the students when he visits the school during the 11-day stay in China.

For Austin, the experience of meeting new people was a big draw in participating.

Mr Hiruo said his excitement for the program is growing as it expands to include both Newtown Middle School and Reed Intermediate School. For both schools, he said, the sister school relationship is in its early stages.

“It’s growing on a very grand scheme,” he said, of the sister school relationship overall, “and all these people who have helped and are helping are sending it through the process.”

Mr Hiruo thanked community support for the program’s relatively quick growth in the past few years.

The 13-day itinerary for the April 2011 Delegation includes roughly two days of travel, visiting Liaocheng Middle School #3, visiting The Beijing Zoo, Beijing’s Walking Mall, and more.

Student ambassadors schedule to participate in the delegation are Austin Baldour, Kate Bartel, Nicole Davis, Abbey Doski, Liam Ferguson, Marina Lleonart-Calvo, Hannah Maret, Don Morrissey, Justina Paproski, Madalyn Petrovich, Leah Pinckney, and Kevin Rovelli.

NHS, NMS, and Reed teachers scheduled to visit China as educator delegates are Wendy Bowen, Tom Brant, Cathy Cincogrono, Amanda Friedman, Katherine Matz, Jeanne Pannone, Martha Parvis, Doug Russell, Mardi Smith, Michelle Tenenbaum, NHS Assistant Principal Jaime Rivera, and Mr Hiruo.