FARMINGTON — Regional School Unit 9 is gearing up for the 2023/2024 school year, which means school staff is working tirelessly to make sure students are fully prepared for the school year. One teacher in particular, Lisa Dalrymple, is getting ready for incoming international students coming from abroad to visit Farmington and attend Mt. Blue High School for a period of one year.

“Last year, I think we had 15 or 16 students,” Dalrymple said in a phone interview. “This year, we’re going to have about nine students.”

Dalrymple added that it varies from year to year not only in terms of the number of students coming to MBHS, but also location as well. “Last year, we had a few Italians and Germans and this year, I don’t think we’re going to have any Italians,” she said. “This year, we’re going to have quite a few Spanish students.”

Dalrymple first got the ball rolling for this program in 2014, with a mixed vote from the RSU 9 board of directors that went in her favor. Since 2015, she has spearheaded the program and ensured that all students have a place to stay that is safe and secure. Before starting the program, Dalrymple had a significant background with hosting international students, having hosted for 15 years.

“It’s a great experience,” she said. “If you have an international student in your home, what are you going to want to do? You’re going to want to show the students the best of your community.”

“How many times have you gone to the Maine State Museum?” she continued. “On your own? You don’t. We don’t tend to do that as much, unless we’re showing people around. Sad to say, but you know, that’s natural. We say, ‘oh, yeah, we live here. Yeah, we can go anytime.’

“It really forces you to go back to [Acadia National Park], or forces you to check out a lighthouse, or have a lobster roll or something like that,” Dalrymple said. “It get to experience your surroundings again.”

Dalrymple says the need for host families is widespread in that she needs a variety of different members that can accommodate certain needs. For example, if a host family is going away for the weekend, a back-up host family will be needed to watch over the international student until they return. According to Dalrymple, a host family can host a student for a year, or a semester. It is at the discretion of the host family, which is why she is reaching out to bring more host families into her network.

Her other motive with the program was to bring back world languages at an elementary school level, which were taken out of the district due to budget restrictions.

“Slowly over the years, it’s been taken away, so to speak, due to different reasons,” she said. “We used to have [world languages] when I first started working for the district. We used to have a program all the way from the elementary school all the way through the high school. At this time, speaking now, we only have world languages at the high school.

“When I first proposed this, a few years back, the purpose was for us to try and bring back world languages at the elementary level.”

With the international program, Dalrymple hopes it will inject some much needed diversity into the student body and hopefully reinvigorate interest in world language across all grade levels.

Despite contending with visa issues, as the type of visa the international student must obtain to participate in the program is only good for one year, Dalrymple is hopeful that the program will continue to succeed – not only bringing in diversity, but also sharing with the rest of the world the Maine way of life.

“I really believe that it enriches your family experience,” she said. “I think it’s one of the best things that I’ve done for my family. I’m not from here. I grew up in different places. I’m Mexican American, I guess I call myself, so I kind of grew up with all these different cultures around me, and then here I am. I love Maine. And I love this community.”

For more information on the program, visit www.mtbluersd.org/hs/international-students or contact Dalrymple at ldalrymple@mtbluersd.org.