Students Travel to Other Worlds, Right Next Door : Education: Pupils from an inner-city school and an exclusive private facility swap campuses for a day and discover that they share a lot.

Fiana Kumetz has glimpsed how the other half lives.

Before Kumetz participated in a language and cultural exchange program with an inner-city school, the 13-year-old always considered her family’s five-bedroom Hancock Park home to be “a bit on the small side.”

“I always told my parents that we should move into a bigger mansion,” Fiana said. “But then I saw where the other students lived. Their houses weren’t even a quarter of the size of ours. I started to realize that I don’t appreciate what I’ve got.”

Fiana, a student at Harvard-Westlake Middle School, is one of 130 students who have swapped ZIP codes for a day. Since November, there have been four exchanges between Harvard-Westlake and Berendo Junior High School near downtown Los Angeles. Students from Harvard-Westlake’s Beverly Glen campus visited Berendo once and Berendo students have taken three trips to the private school, which also has a campus in Studio City.

An additional five exchanges are planned this year with the hope that the model will be replicated in schools throughout the Los Angeles district. Harvard-Westlake students earn a required 12 hours of community service upon completion of the program.

The exchanges are the first to occur since a similar “human relations” program was phased out during recent public school budget cuts. Before that, the Program for Intercultural Enrichment operated in elementary schools.

In theory, the effort, which uses federal funding from the Emergency Immigrant Education Assistance Program, is not unusual. Those immigrant students who wind up in inner-city schools are often bused to underutilized district sites. In many corners of West Los Angeles, pockets of such students gather to speak their foreign languages. But many remain isolated, treated as “the poor, leftover immigrant students,” said Lila Silvern, program coordinator.

The new exchange, however, pairs Berendo with an exclusive private school. It encourages interaction--students are unable to segregate into comfortable cliques.

“Everybody was very hesitant at first,” Silvern said. “The Harvard-Westlake kids had fears that the Berendo students were all in gangs, armed with spray cans and switchblade knives. And the Berendo kids thought” that the Harvard-Westlake students “might be snobby. We were concerned they would be intimidated by Harvard-Westlake or come back with a lot of jealousy and despair.”

Instead, Silvern said the Berendo students “really blossomed” from interactions with their Harvard-Westlake counterparts on their lush 12-acre campus.

“New horizons and possibilities opened up for them. And the Harvard-Westlake kids found that . . . there are other cultures and ways people cope and live out there.”

Harvard-Westlake instructor Jennie Niles, who began the program, added: “Our kids haven’t had much interaction with Spanish-speaking people besides conversations with their maid or gardener. For many of them, it was the first time they made friends their age with someone from another culture.”

Students are paired during the exchanges, which included ice-breaker games, tours of the campus by the hosting students, and discussions of one another’s similarities and differences. Students are encouraged to try out their second language during the interactions.

During one recent exchange, Harvard-Westlake student Michael McCollem asked partner Karina Gonzalez, in Spanish: “Do you know what a similarity is?”

“Of course,” Karina answered in English.

Although their interaction wasn’t off to a winning start, the students, both 13, settled down to some important questions: career choices.

“ Me gusta --um, do you know what a lawyer is?” Michael asked.

“Of course,” Karina replied. “I want to be a doctor.”

“ Me gusta polo aquatica, “ Michael said when asked about his favorite sport. Fumbling in his new language, he soon opted for English: “I live in Los Feliz. Near a zoo. I have muchos animales near me.”

Michael later led Karina on a tour of his campus, passing a hallway fireplace, oak banisters and framed prints of Van Gogh paintings.

“It’s good to see a different part of the city,” Karina said. “They lead a rich life here. I can see other ways people live.”

Across town at Berendo, locked gates surrounded the campus, lending it a military atmosphere. Signs around the perimeter warned trespassers of possible arrest and imprisonment.

“We try to sensitize our kids to the Berendo kids’ disadvantages,” Niles said. “Before they visit, we role-play what it would be like for them to move to another country without money, without knowing the language and without having friends.”

Fiana, the Harvard-Westlake student, said she learned of “the pride other cultures have about their backgrounds. I realized I haven’t been that interested or active in my own cultural background, Judaism.

“There was this one Berendo student who had a wooden stick instrument that he would hit to make different sounds. I was like, whoaaa , impressed by it. I’m thinking that the only thing I know how to play is the piano--nothing unique like that.”

Harvard-Westlake culture was also an eye-opener for Berendo students.

“There’s no trash on the floor here, lots of trees, big houses and no locks on the gates,” said Thelma Ganuca, 13, who moved to Los Angeles from El Salvador last year. “It’s a big place.”

“Many of these students move from the little barrio where they lived in their native country directly to another little barrio somewhere in Los Angeles,” Silvern said. “Part of the program’s purpose is to show them there are many options, many possibilities--life isn’t limited to their neighborhood.”

Silvern said some upcoming exchanges will be held on “neutral ground,” where students can “achieve and experience one another on a more equal level.”

“In April, we’re going to TreePeople to plant trees, do some composting and get our hands dirty away from the two schools,” she said. “Both sets of students will ride the bus together to the site. It’s important to let them interact and have as much connection as possible with each other.

“We targeted junior high students because it introduces them to another culture at an age when they’re really aware of differences. It helps to break down prejudice and build esteem.”

Harvard-Westlake student Matt Howard said the exchanges served to dispel complacency that he said surrounds fellow students at his school.

“A lot of kids in my school live in a fantasy world where everything they do and have is right,” said Matt, 14, who lives in Los Feliz. “They have everything they want. Money is no question.

“Before the exchange, the only person I knew who spoke Spanish was my housekeeper, Blanca. I learned that we’re all just basically kids struggling to grow up. We don’t have radically different attitudes. We could easily become friends.”