After having announced that most Montgomery County high schools would be closed to foreign exchange students for the next school year, Maryland’s largest school system has backtracked a bit.
Spokeswoman Gboyinde Onijala told 海角精品黑料 Friday that, after school officials 鈥渉ad heard from community members and families鈥� who host exchange students, most high schools in the county will be allowed to take up to five foreign exchange students each.
The exceptions are Bethesda-Chevy Chase, Winston Churchill and Walt Whitman high schools, which will remain closed to foreign students; Walter Johnson High School will take two. Onijala said these schools were the most overcrowded in the system.
This applies to the upcoming school year; after that, Onijala said, the school system will take a look at the regulations involving foreign exchange students and make any other necessary changes going forward.
The problem was 鈥渟evere overcrowding,鈥� and Onijala said that problem is still there.
鈥淲e understand how important this program is, and we certainly want to welcome foreign exchange students,鈥� she said, 鈥溾�� but we鈥檙e faced with the reality that many of our schools are over capacity.鈥�
She said that, up until the last couple of years, the school system was growing at a rate of 2,500 students a year, and school construction couldn鈥檛 keep up. That meant lots of portable classrooms in trailers and other temporary structures, which Onijala said wasn鈥檛 conducive to productive learning.
鈥淥ur desire and our goal is to provide students with an environment that they can learn and thrive, and a comfortable environment while they鈥檙e doing so, but 鈥� we鈥檙e unable to keep up in terms of building new schools.鈥�
The new rules mean more total slots for foreign students in the system than Montgomery County has had in recent years 鈥� 36 last year, 32 the year before that and 39 the year before that.
鈥淲e now have the capacity because we鈥檙e spreading them out,鈥� Onijala said.
The original ruling was that county high schools would not accept foreign exchange students except at Magruder, Damascus, Gaithersburg, Rockville, Seneca Valley, Sherwood, Springbrook and Watkins Mill high schools. Onijala said the objections from the community centered around the difficulties that foreign students would have attending schools near the homes they were being hosted in.
鈥淲e believe in the value of this program and we certainly want to welcome exchange students to our district,鈥� Onijala said. 鈥淲e found a good compromise for the upcoming school year.鈥�
海角精品黑料鈥檚 John Aaron contributed to this report.
