School officials sign historic agreement
Staff photo/Scott Mitchell Johnson
AGREEMENT SIGNED — SAD 1 Superintendent Gehrig Johnson, left, and Zhang Jiancheng, headmaster at Xi’an Siyuan High School in Xi’an, China, signed an agreement last Wednesday night that will allow up to 50 Chinese students per year to take Presque Isle High School courses in the fall at Xi’an Siyuan High School. Looking on is Zhu-qi Lu from the University of Maine at Presque Isle, who helped serve as an interpreter. According to the agreement, the joint experimental program’s goal is to learn from the philosophy, academic systems and management of an American high school, and prepare students for innovation, critical thinking and international communication.
PRESQUE ISLE — A first-of-its-kind agreement was signed during last Wednesday night’s SAD 1 board meeting that will allow up to 50 Chinese students per year to take Presque Isle High School courses in the fall at Xi’an Siyuan High School.
For the last year, SAD 1 has been working — with support from the University of Maine at Presque Isle — with school officials in Xi’an to develop an international school relationship.
“[With this agreement] between 30-50 Chinese students would be enrolled for each of the next three years at Xi’an Siyuan High School where they would be taking PIHS courses while they also participate in their own program,” said Superintendent Gehrig Johnson. “They will be working toward a dual high school degree — Chinese and American.
“We’ll be delivering a basic core curriculum that our own students would take. They will likely begin with English, health and world history,” he said. “Many of the classes that the Chinese students currently take like physical education, for example, we would accept for credit.”
Johnson said the Chinese school will cover all the expenses of the program ranging from PIHS books and supplies to salaries of teachers.
“At Xi’an Siyuan High School, students’ parents pay for their schooling directly; not through state and local taxes as is the case in the U.S.,” he said.
“Siyuan High School will also cover all administrative costs, including all travel,” said Johnson, who will visit Xi’an Siyuan High School in the fall.
According to the agreement, the joint experimental program’s goal is to learn from the philosophy, academic systems and management of an American high school, and prepare students for innovation, critical thinking and international communication.
“Siyuan students in our program will all be planning on attending college in the United States, would have proficiency in English, and would have the opportunity to come to PIHS at some point during the three-year period in their PIHS program,” said Johnson. “They would spend either a semester or a year at PIHS where they would continue our curriculum and become more familiar with our American culture and language. This will help them as they apply to American universities.”
With the agreement officially signed by Johnson and Zhang Jiancheng, headmaster at Xi’an Siyuan High School, the next step is to recruit Chinese students into the PIHS program at Xi’an.
“We’ll also be helping with the recruiting of American teachers who will be working in the program. We anticipate there will be three staff members in our program the first year and they would be employees of the Chinese school,” said Johnson. “It’s possible that members of our PIHS faculty may be interested in teaching in China, and we may recruit other American teachers also. There will also be the opportunity for some of our students to attend Xi’an Siyuan High School as the program develops.”
Recognizing that the current trend in Maine is to directly recruit Chinese students to attend Maine high schools, Johnson said it “seemed logical to us to first develop a relationship over there to familiarize them with our curriculum, our teachers and programs, and then it would be logical to bring them to PIHS.”
“I think their experience would be much more enjoyable and meaningful when they get here if they were familiar with PIHS and its programs before arriving,” he said. “We are the first public high school in Maine to try this approach.”
Jiancheng was in Presque Isle last week meeting with Johnson and touring PIHS.
“I am very glad to be in the U.S. and have met Dr. Johnson and the other people in the school,” said Jiancheng through an interpreter. “After a year of corresponding by e-mail and other channels, we were finally able to sit down together and work out the details of the agreement. This program will help us develop the strengths of each country’s fundamental educational offerings between the two schools. Hopefully we’ll have many of our high quality students go through the program.
“A lot of Chinese students want to go to the U.S. to further their education, but they don’t always have the chance,” he said. “Through this collaboration, many will. I believe this cooperation will be a win-win case and will be very successful.”
Johnson said he, too, is excited about the new opportunities.
“We have a vision to showcase our excellent PIHS program in China and we’re anxious to get started,” he said.
“We have a lack of cultural diversity in Aroostook County and we look at this as a chance to interact with another culture. China is the world’s second-leading economic power now and they have a very strong interest in learning from America’s best high schools,” said Johnson. “I think this will be a good opportunity for us to showcase our high school curriculum in their country.”
Having recently viewed a slide presentation on Xi’an Siyuan High School, Johnson said he was “very impressed” by the Chinese school.
“It’s a beautiful campus; it looks like an American college campus,” he said, noting that Xi’an has a population of approximately 8 million. “The school is presently remodeling a building to house the PIHS school program. It will be ready for occupancy in September. They have about 1,200 students and they’re all boarded on campus. It is adjacent to the University of Xi’an which has 23,000 students. Both the high school and the college are privately run, and I was very impressed with what I viewed.”
