Release Date: 4/25/2007

Contact: Lyle Patzkowsky, 410.887.7633 Charles Herndon, 410.887.6111

What: Dulaney High School Principal Lyle Patzkowsky will welcome Baltimore County Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Joe A. Hairston as he meets with eight Chinese exchange students and two Dulaney High School students who will be traveling to China this summer. Dr. Hairston, who has spoken frequently about the changing global economic and social dynamics resulting in an emerging Chinese marketplace, will discuss the students' impressions of the American educational system and will highlight the new Chinese language program at Dulaney. Additionally, Dr. Hairston will travel to China this summer as part of the 13th Educational Leadership Conference coordinated by the Virginia Tech School of Education. While there, he is expected to meet with His Excellency Dr. Boaqing Zhang, China's vice minister of education, and visit Beijing Normal University.

When: Friday, April 27, 2007, at 10:30 a.m.

Where: Dulaney High School
255 Padonia Road, Timonium

Background:
In March, Dulaney High School welcomed the eight exchange students and an instructor from the First Railway Middle School in Xi'an, China, as part of an eight-week visit to the United States, part of an exchange program between Dulaney and First Railway Middle. (In China, secondary schools are called middle schools.) From May 22 through July 18, five students and Deborah Wilson-Matusky, a library media specialist, from Dulaney will travel to China to visit First Railway.

In August 2006, Dulaney became the first school in Baltimore County to offer Mandarin Chinese language instruction, through a partnership with Towson University's Chinese education program. The Mandarin Chinese course at Dulaney is being taught this school year and next school year by Weimin Hu, an education professor from China, who is under contract with Towson University.

First Railway is a 70-year-old school that maintains two campuses and more than 7,000 students who must take exams and apply to be accepted into the school. Once supported by a railroad company, the school is now funded in part by the government and in part through tuition paid by parents.

Each of the visiting students - five boys and three girls - is staying with a different family in the Dulaney High community. Most of the visiting students are 16 years old; two will celebrate their 16th birthdays while in the United States.

In addition to participating in classes, school activities, and sightseeing in Baltimore, the students have also traveled throughout the region, with trips to Washington, D.C., New York, and Philadelphia. During seventh period of each school day, all of the visiting students go to Chinese class, to help teach the Dulaney students and to share their knowledge of Chinese life and culture.

Last summer, Dulaney's English Department Chair Kelly Smith (a 2005 Milken Family Foundation National Educator Award winner) and Principal Patzkowsky participated in the Fulbright-Hays Study Abroad Program in China.

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