Student Exchange Likely to Endure : Death: Officials said the loss of a Chinese boy’s life should not end program between LAUSD and a city near Hong Kong.

Officials overseeing the first large-scale student exchange program between China and the Los Angeles Unified School District said Wednesday that they do not expect the death of one of the students to mar the program’s success.

Bin-Feng Zheng, 12, died late Monday night after he was struck by a car as he darted across Topanga Canyon Boulevard near Burbank Boulevard in Woodland Hills. Bin-Feng was one of 75 students who traveled from Guangzhou, a large city near Hong Kong, to attend a program at Hale Middle School, built around English as a Second Language courses.

Christine Tung, director of the Sino-U.S. Business and Technology Exchange, a private company that works on Trans-Pacific business ventures and helped set up the student exchange, said she does not expect the boy’s death to have a negative effect on the exchange program and that so far the rest of the students appear committed to finishing their courses here.

“Accidents will happen anytime, anywhere,” Tung said.

Bin-Feng, who had adopted the American name Roy and was known for his curiosity, apparently slipped away from the Woodland Hills apartment complex where he and the other students have lived since their arrival in September. Tung said an investigation has been launched to determine how the boy managed to elude his chaperon.

Chinese-speaking crisis counselors continued to comfort Bin-Feng’s companions Wednesday at the school.

“They seem to be a little better, they’re more refreshed,” said Karen Stafford, an ESL coordinator. She said school officials planned to give individual counseling to any students, such as the boy’s roommates, who may be having a particularly difficult time dealing with his death.

“We just want to continue to work through this,” she said.

Stafford said Hale students are planning to write to Bin-Feng’s parents in China. Steve Lawler, an assistant principal at Hale, said that his office has also received an outpouring of concern from people in the community who read about the Chinese students in newspapers.

“They are devastated by this and want to express their condolences to the family too,” Lawler said.