Ukraine Students Start 3-Week Visit

Students and staff at North Hollywood High School rolled out the red carpet Monday for 10 Ukrainian exchange students, visiting for three weeks to attend classes and sample local culture.

The 10 teenagers and their chaperon, who arrived here Friday, stood at wide-eyed attention as the school drill team twirled bright red banners at the lunchtime welcoming ceremony.

They were introduced to the noontime crowd by Stacy Ordona, a foreign-language teacher at the school who accompanied her students to Rivne, Ukraine, last spring.

“America is so beautiful; it has impressed me greatly,” said 16-year-old Iryna Lizohub. “I love the way American teens can express themselves. The girls can wear such different clothes and bright makeup. We don’t do that in my country; it’s considered immoral.”

The Ukrainian teens are staying with the families of the 10 North Hollywood High School students who visited the former Soviet republic last April as part of a program sponsored by the Washington, D.C.-based American Councils for International Education.

They are scheduled to visit Disneyland, Universal Studios, the Getty museum and Los Angeles Zoo during their stay. The students also will attend special classes taught by North Hollywood High teachers on American slang, folklore, jazz, and baseball. They said they are excited about sampling popular American culinary fare.

“One of the points of this program is to let our students see the differences and similarities between youth in both countries, and to help solve the problems they face,” said Olena Franchuk, vice principal of School No. 15 in Rivne.

The students have already given a set of proposals they wrote with the American teens to the regional administrators in Rivne, suggesting their high school provide a social support system and youth services, she said.

“It’s important for kids in the Valley to have a world view outside of our area,” said Stephen Stromberg, 16, a member of the American exchange team. “We need to understand the world by learning about others’ traditions. We can learn only so much from textbooks.”