We've Got Visitors

Scarsdale High School families are currently hosting fourteen students from the Instituto San Isidro in Madrid who have come to town in the first phase of the Spanish Exchange. These students attend an urban high school and are now getting a first-hand experience of life in a suburban American community. Senora Judy Hochberg from SHS arranged the exchange in cooperation with Maria Eugenia Perez Pascual and Rafael Martin Villa Imageof San Isidro High School. Each Spanish student has been matched with a Scarsdale family with a Spanish-speaking student in the house. Scarsdale students will complete the exchange with a two-week visit to Madrid in February 2010.

The visitors have a very ambitious schedule. Five school days will be spent here accompanying their Scarsdale hosts to class and the other five weekdays involve extensive tours of the area. The Spanish students have already seen the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Fifth Avenue, the Guggenheim, the Museum of Natural History, the Dakota, Central Park and West Point. Upcoming excursions include a Circle Line Boat tour, the Empire State Building, the Statue of Liberty, Ground Zero and much more. Their 12-hour days are exhausting, but fun.

Their level of proficiency at English is as varied as our ability to speak Spanish, so families are communicating however they can. The Spanish students have a wonderful attitude and seem very happy to be here. Personally, our family is enjoying Inez who speaks beautiful English and can even tell jokes. We all went to see West Side Story and as much of the show was in Spanish, it was a good opportunity for Inez to go to a Broadway show and understand it too. She may have been the only person in the audience who was happy to hear “I Feel Pretty” sung in Spanish.

The students are here until April 30th, so if you spot them in the community say “Hola” and ask them their impressions of Scarsdale. You’re bound to be amused.