Students from Boryeong, Korea, did not exactly blend into the colorful crowds at Shorecrest and Shorewood high schools during their four-day visit.
That was the point.
“There was a lot of growth taking place with the Korean students and our own,” Shoreline School District Superintendent Jim Welsh said about the visit. “There was a lot of interactivity and curiosity about the two countries and how students attended school.”
Twelve students from DaeCheon high school, in Boryeong, as well as four teachers and one principal, visited the area from Feb. 14-18, as part of a collaborative effort between the Shoreline School District and the Shoreline Sister Cities Association.
The visit by the 10th-and 11th-graders has been underway since a delegation from Boryeong, which is Shoreline’s Sister City, visited the city in May. During the visit, members of the delegation spoke with school district staff about organizing a student exchange.
The exchange students had an opportunity to spend three full days attending high school classes, with half attending Shorewood High School and the rest attending Shorecrest High School. They also participated in before-and-after school activates and events planned by host families.
Mary Rohrback, of Lake Forest Park, hosted two exchange students, with the help of her three children and husband. Rohrback volunteered to host the exchange students after seeing a notice in the “Scoop,” a publication sent to families with students attending Shorecrest High School.
The exchange students, Dongkyo In and Juyeon Yun, both 17, accompanied two of Rohrback’s three children to school. Her son, John, a senior at Shorecrest and son, Bo, a junior at Shorecrest, each took an exchange student to class, as well as entertained them after school with games such as poker, foosball and football.
“At first the boys were a little quiet, shy and sensitive about their English,” Rohrback said. “By the end of the stay, they were much more conversant.”
The family planned several outings for the exchange students, including taking them to Dicks restaurant for hamburgers, on a tour of downtown Seattle and for a ride on the Edmonds ferry.
One student, In, explained that he grew up on a farm in Korea and is the first member of his family to prepare to attend a university in order to eventually provide for his family. Compared to schools in Korea, which require the students to study about 12 hours per day, Rohrback said the exchange students enjoyed the somewhat relaxed atmosphere of local schools.
“Neither one had been to the United States before,” Rohrback said. “They were just really nice, sweet country boys, taking it all in.”
Cheryl Lee, chair of the Shoreline Sister Cities Association, said organizing the visit was largely handled by the superintendent’s office, although the association sponsored a welcome dinner.
An agreement was signed in April between Boryeong officials and Shoreline city staff, Lee said, which resulted in the first exchange of students.
The favor will likely be reciprocated, she said, with Shoreline School District students eventually traveling to Korea.
“The Boryeong high school would like to have students from the high school visit them in July,” Lee said. “We are hoping this will be the beginning of many more visits.”
At the welcoming ceremony the first night, Lee said it was interesting to see the host families and students interact for the first time.
“To these students, English is not their first language,” Lee said. “They were trying to speak English they have learned in classes.”
The Shoreline City Council designated Boryeong as Shoreline’s first Sister City on June 9, 2003.
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