Published: August 03, 2009 11:28 pm      

Bishop Carroll to house international students

EBENSBURG — When school starts in a few weeks, international students attending Bishop Carroll High School will have an experience unique to the area.

Principal Kristie Wolfe said after seeing the demand from international students to study in America – and locally – grow, she and other administrators decided to take the concept of hosting international students further and house them on school property.

Aquinas Hall, which is located on the school’s campus, is being upgraded and will serve as home for the students during the years they attend Bishop Carroll.

“The building was most recently used by the community college, and there was a lot of renovations done to it in the late ’90s with new electrical and wiring for the Internet,” Wolfe said.

“That was a benefit to us, and we basically just had to go in and replace some carpets and put in showers.”

And so the Aquinas International Program was born.

To date, four international students from South Korea and China have contracts in place and will move in at the beginning of the school year.

“For Phase 1 we’d like to have

10 students in place by fall and then for Phase 2, two or three years down the line, we’d like to add another

10 students,” Wolfe said.

“Once it’s fully functional, we’d like 20 students, so it’s exciting for us to see this starting to come together and we’re taking it one step at a time.”

Discussions also are under way with students in Mexico and Venezuela.

A house family will live in the dorm-like setting and serve as surrogate parents.

As the number of students increases, so will the number of house families needed.

“They’ll have to set the house rules and monitor curfews and also make sure the students have an opportunity to see and experience the area,” Wolfe said.

“We are looking at people who have international experience, and they have to go through training on how to deal with teenagers.”

Because Bishop Carroll has a partnership in place with St. Francis University, the international students will be able to take classes at the university to earn college credits.

“This attracts students and brings more diversity to the school,” Wolfe said.

She added that hosting international students has a great impact on American kids because it creates a global community within that school.

“Our students are able to learn so much from these international students, and they can understand and appreciate a global education,” she said.