Mission High School Internationale

ST. IGNATIUS — The great American poet Maya Angelou said that diversity makes for a rich tapestry. If St. Ignatius High School were a drapery of sorts, there would be none richer as nearly 10 percent of the student body are foreign students from abroad.

This diverse bunch of juniors and seniors from countries spanning Europe, to Asia, to the Middle East came to study abroad and experience American culture, and have been embraced by the Mission Valley ever since their late summer arrivals.

The countries represented: Germany, Russia, Ukraine, Norway, China, Thailand, Tajikistan, Jordan, and Egypt. A virtual United Nations.

With most of the students coming from booming metropolitan areas across the globe, the wilds of rural northwest Montana have been a new adventure for all.

Mohammad Al-Amer came to St. Ignatius from Amman, Jordan — a city of 1.3 million people.

“I moved to a city smaller than the school I attended in Jordan,” Al-Amer said. “The big difference for me has been to see the open spaces as well as horses, dogs and animals everywhere.

Al-Amer said he had never even seen a horse before in Jordan, but since he’s been in Montana he’s become a cowboy.

“It’s very different, but I got used to it really fast, and now I just love it,” Al-Amer said.

For others, the wintery landscape of the Mission Mountains has been an experience of new found beauty and culture shock.

Yasmine El-Menshawy of Egypt suffered through the bitter cold and the snowstorms whereas Aleks Novikov of Russia said he even sweated through  January and February.

As far as academics go, most students described their foreign classroom environments as stricter and harder. Most were required to wear school uniforms and choosing electives or any of their studies was not likely an option.

In the sports arena, most did not have sports teams affiliated with their own schools. Here each of the foreign students is part of some sport or extracurricular activity’s team.

A handful of the female students tried cheerleading this year and Al-Amer stole the show as the Mission Bulldog mascot. Munis Partov has enjoyed playing soccer and basketball in Montana and in his home country of Tajikistan, but American football was a new sport he added to his repertoire this school year playing wide receiver for the Bulldogs.

School Counselor Carrie Stefanatz has helped set the students on the right track from the get-go — from host family placing to arranging community service opportunities. Students abroad on the United States run YES or FLEX programs must perform a designated amount of community service hours.

All students are on one-year school visas, but would like to return to the U.S. for college if possible.

“For our small student body this brings a lot of multi-cultural diversity to our group,” Stefanatz said.

“They’ve touched a lot of people in our community and the Mission Valley community has been very inviting and grateful to have them here.”

Principal Jason Sargent explained that, unlike many schools, St. Ignatius High has not put a cap on how many foreign students they will accept each year with the totals varying from 6-14 students annually. Sargent said that the school district does not see any special funding for hosting the foreign students other than the extra funding the students attract by increasing the school’s total head count population.

So the benefit isn’t exactly financial, rather cultural. Each of the students are positive and outgoing, involved in both academics and extracurricular school activities or sports — each bringing their own abilities, expertise, and unique perspectives to the multi-cultural classrooms or playing fields.

So why St. Ignatius? Why does a town of 800 people open their doors so much to students from abroad? Perhaps a larger commentary on the always giving, ever caring, neighborly nature of the people who inhabit this place is necessary.

“We just have a high number of families that are willing to take in kids up here,” Sargent said, adding that the families who open their houses all either had or currently have children in the district’s schools.

“I think the families who have these students have grown addicted to having them, because they keep on doing it.”