RHS Hosts Foreign Students

By Angela Deines

Special to The Capital-Journal

For a 3A Kansas high school with an average of about 250 students, hosting nine to 10 foreign exchange students in one academic year is a little unusual.

But Toby McCollough, principal of Rossville Junior-Senior High School, embraces those numbers.

“With us being a rural community, this is a good way for our kids to get that culture that may already be at another school,” McCollough said of his school’s foreign exchange student program. “We try to reap the benefits from them (foreign exchange students) being here.”

Although having an average of nine to 10 foreign exchange students each year for about the past three years has slightly increased class sizes, McCollough said his staff also has fully embraced having more of the visiting students.

“Not a one of them said they didn’t want another one (student),” McCollough said, recalling the time when he told his staff there would be a higher count of foreign exchange students. “They (teachers) extract knowledge from them.”

McCollough said his students and the Rossville community continue to welcome their visitors, who have come from all across the globe. He said that full acceptance becomes more evident when former exchange students bring their own families back to the town of a little more than 1,000 people to visit.

“They feel that connection,” he said. “They have lifelong friends here.”

Much of the credit McCollough gives to the success of his school’s foreign exchange student program is directed toward Kelly Brown, a Rossville resident and the regional coordinator for the Academic Year in America, or AYA, program for the past five years.

Brown said she is responsible for 19 visiting students out of the estimated 50 students who are in Kansas currently as part of the AYA. She said the program requires her to either meet with or contact the student, host family and the student’s biological family monthly.

“It works really well,” Brown said. “If we’re in contact continuously, we can work out a problem before it escalates into a bigger problem. We take pride in that we take care of our students. We don’t just get them here and then forget about them.”

Brown also said she gives credit for the success of the visiting student program to the staff and administration at Rossville Junior-Senior High School.

“I give kudos to them for allowing us to have this many,” she said, referring to the nine students who will attend the school this spring semester. “They (students) blend in really well. They get good grades and usually don’t struggle academically.”

Before she matches a student with a family, Brown said she spends a lot of time going through the students’ profiles to understand their preferences and personalities.

Julie Spring said she, her husband and their son, Zach, now 22, have hosted foreign exchange students each year since the 2008-09 school year from Japan, Germany and Pakistan. Their current student, Rafael de Arruda, is from Brazil.

“I think that the Rossville kids have been very good to them,” Spring said of the foreign exchange students who have been in the community. “They love that people talk to them but they really want friends. They came here to be part of America and the culture and sometimes they’re afraid or they’re embarrassed. They just don’t know how to ask.”

Spring said as part of the Academic Year in America program, visiting students have to give presentations on their culture and lives, as well as perform a required number of community service hours. She said Bilal Channa, the student she hosted last year, resonated with her and the Rossville community in particular, because he is a practicing Muslim.

“He engaged a lot with adults,” she said. “Some of the things he would consider to be important wouldn’t be something a normal 16-year-old would think is important. He worries about what’s happening in his country, he worries about world things.”

Spring said after hosting Bilal, whom she remains in regular contact with, she sees global events from a completely new perspective.

“What does happen in the rest of the world is important to us,” she said. “I’m thankful that he gave me that.”

Julie Spring has hosted four foreign exchange students who have attended Rossville Junior-High School. The 3A school is currently hosting nine visiting students through the Academic Year in America program that has an estimated 50 students in Kansas this school year.