PORT HUENEME : Students, Teachers Still Bulgaria-Bound

Students and teachers from the Hueneme Elementary School District will visit Bulgaria despite political unrest in the capital city of Sofia, officials said.

Twenty students and six teachers from Blackstock and E.O. Green junior high schools will tour the Eastern bloc country as part of an exchange that began last year. Parents had been concerned about violence in the country, Blackstock Principal Tom Haas said.

Bulgarian anti-communist groups recently set fire to the governing Socialist Party’s headquarters. Zhelyu Zhelev, Bulgaria’s first non-communist president in 40 years, is seeking democratic reforms.

During the riot, police clubbed demonstrators and later called a national alert.

But, Haas said, officials at the State Department and U.S. Embassy in Sofia told district officials that it is safe for the students to travel. Haas said parents of the eighth-graders decided Tuesday to move ahead with the program.

The group is going to Bulgaria to experience the country’s culture and way of life, Haas said. They will visit the Bulgarian Academy of Science to observe the country’s advances in robotics and computer science.

An equal number of students and teachers from Bulgaria are scheduled to arrive in the United States on Saturday. Haas said they will attend Hueneme’s classrooms, live with the families of the students visiting Bulgaria and tour Southern California.

The exchange is an offshoot of a deal made between the district and Bulgaria, allowing the country to market the Hueneme district’s method of using computers in the classroom.