What Schools Say About VIF

Loudoun County Schools
(Loudoun, Virginia, United States)

Our first year with the Program, we hosted three VIF teachers, and by our third year we had 16. In coming years, we plan to increase this number to 25 or more.

Loudoun has hosted VIF teachers since 1999. Carol Shackelford, who recently retired as the county's supervisor of personnel, has this to say about VIF:

I have had the privilege to meet a lot of the VIF staff, and I must say I am overwhelmingly impressed with the job everyone at the organization does. They are quite knowledgeable about all facets of the Program and their actions and communication outside the office consistently portray the organization's goal of matching the best visiting teachers with the appropriate districts. For instance, during the 2001-2002 school year, my district needed to fill three Spanish positions less than one month before the year was to begin. VIF's regional directors, worked diligently to find several great candidates for us, and three matches were made in an incredibly limited time period.

VIF's teachers display this same commitment to positive productivity. Many of our VIF educators have shared fascinating information about their countries, their teaching experiences at home, and VIF during school-wide assemblies, staff-development workshops, PTA meetings and community events. Their willingness to repeatedly share their culture with children and adults is admirable. Other teachers say these presentations have been most useful because they introduce instructional strategies that they had never before heard or seen. The students also have grown quite fond of our VIF teachers. A few VIF teachers have shared with me the delightful personal notes they've received from their students, which expressed tremendous gratitude and admiration.

An added bonus to working with VIF is having access to outstanding teachers from all subject areas. I believe having native speakers teach foreign language to our children has made an immeasurable difference in their ability to remember words and concepts from the different cultures that are being represented. I have heard that students become ecstatic when they see pictures and videos from major cultural events and celebrations that actually feature their teacher.

Our district has also received some remarkable VIF math and science teachers, such as Paul Looyen, who successfully integrated Australian culture into his physics courses at one of our high schools. Because of the impressive track record that VIF has established with my district, I have encouraged a number of my contacts in other school districts to look into the Program. As a result, several of them have joined and have referred VIF to other districts.