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Holy Spirit Episcopal School has a sister-school relationship with Saint Michael's School, a private elementary and secondary school located in San Jose, Costa Rica.
The relationship with Saint Michael's has played an integral role in our students' acquisition of Spanish and their development of inter-cultural awareness. Our children have a real need to communicate in Spanish as they meet and correspond with Costa Rican children, and their interest and ability in the language has greatly increased since this relationship began.
From the beginning of the relationship, students have exchanged projects with other students of the same grade. In January 1994, the owners of the school in Costa Rica and three elementary teachers visited Holy Spirit for a week. The following March, we began our student exchange to Costa Rica which has been conducted each year since, alternating visits between schools. Costa Rica's natural resources and Houston's technological resources have given each school a set of unique attractions to share with each other.
In 1999, Holy Spirit was awarded a grant of $31,500.00 by the National Endowment for the Humanities. The funds supported the creation of a set of lesson plans called the "Curriculum Resource" (click links on the right for more information). Lesson Plans teach students in every grade about Costa Rica and communication between the two schools is facilitated via additional electronic projects.
Holy Spirit has also developed a Culture Course to prepare students who take part in the exchange for the experience. With this additional support, our cultural exchange program has continued to improve to a new level of excellence.
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