Rapid City School Board members have voted to temporarily suspend a restriction on the number of exchange students that local schools can enroll.

According to school district policy, "each school may Accept a maximum of 10 (exchange) students a year."

Currently, Central High School has applications from 11 exchange students.

The vote is an exception-to-the-rule case because Central High School officials believed that if a local Central High School student went on an exchange, an exchange student from another country could be enrolled and that student would not be counted against the total cap.

Central has one student on an exchange this year, but according to the policy, all exchange students are counted toward the 10-student cap.

The board members voted to suspend the policy for Central during the 2007-2008 school year.

Board member Doug Kinniburgh expressed concern that there was a limitation placed on the number of exchange students.

"Why is there a number?" he asked.

Superintendent Peter Wharton said the number was arrived at after discussions with teachers and administrators several years ago.

"This isn't that somebody made up an arbitrary number," he said. "I think it's good to have a cap."

Katie Bray, assistant superintendent for student achievement, explained in a later interview that the cap was set in 1991 after an unusual amount of foreign students wanted to attend classes, and it was a strain on resources.

"Let's lift the cap, because ideally that would be the best thing," she said, noting that local student population gains valuable diversity when foreign students attend classes. "But then the question is, how do we provide the educational support?"

As part of the current policy, exchange students attending classes in the district must be with a travel organization that is a member of the Council on Standards for International Educational Travel. Before that requirement, the district was dealing with several travel organization that were providing varying levels of support to students.

The inconsistencies caused problems, she added.

Although the students are required to be fluent in English, "that often is not the case," when exchange students come here, Bray said, which requires extra resources and time on the part of teachers. Their transcripts also have to be translated, which can become an unwieldy task, she added.

She said it's not a bad thing to have foreign students, but that the district has to be prepared to "serve them appropriately."

During the meeting Thursday, board member Eric Abrahamson said the district should be open to taking in foreign students.

"In an era where we live in a global economy and being as isolated as we are, we should welcome foreign students as much as we can," he said.

Bray agreed.

But the district has to be aware and responsible for all of the support that is needed for exchange students, including counseling for homesickness, students who are not happy in the homes they are hosted in, help with the English language and basic cultural adaptation.

With Stevens High School enrolling 1,600 students and employing three counselors, and Central enrolling 2,200 students and employing three and a half counselors, it is a large time investment to counsel exchange students.

More foreign students are also moving to the area to stay, which means there is a larger need for English as a second language counseling, something that has changed from the time that she worked at Stevens High School in 2002.

"When I first started at Stevens, there was not a need for that," she said.

Now, there is.

"We want to be able to provide services to these students," she said. " You want them to have a good experience at your school."

Currently, there are 10 exchange students at Stevens and the 11 at Central.

"We hit the cap every year," Bray said. "We turn people away every year."

The exchange student policy was reviewed in 1994, revised in 1995, reviewed in 2000, 2002, 2003 and it might be up for review again, according to the discussion at Thursday night's meeting.

"I look forward to more discussion on this," Bray said. "I think it's a healthy thing to look at this issue."

Contact Kayla Gahagan at 394-8410 or kayla.gahagan@rapidcityjournal.com