San Salvador - School Report Question and Answers
Do expatriate students socialize with local students at the school? Are both groups successfully integrated into the school culture?
My kids do socialize with local students, although they also have some strong Embassy friendships at school. The majority of students are Salvadoran, so it can be hard for any kid to break in socially, particularly at the older grades. It's not a true international school where lots of new students are coming and going all the time. - Aug 2023
Local students generally begin school in Pre-K (age 3 or 4) and progress through the school together, so they are very tight knit. This gets more intense the higher up you go. My Pre-K kid has a bunch of friends but my older ones have had a very hard time socially. In upper grades, the expat kids seem to try and stick together. - Mar 2022
It is hard for the expat kids to integrate because all the Salvadoran kids know each other from preschool, even if the expat kids speaks Spanish fluently. My kids mostly play with other expat kids. - Sep 2020
My three kids have different levels of socialization with local kids. My middle kid has tons of Salvadoran friends. His Spanish is now the best! Even though, they all speak English well. My eldest has gotten his groove this second year and has many friends both Americans and Salvadorans at the school. My youngest (12) has mostly gringo friends but a few Salvadoran friends. But he is the shyest. His Spanish is pretty good now too. - May 2018
It depends on how good the expatriates' Spanish is. The lower Spanish skill they have, the less they socialize with locals. This can be a real problem socially if there aren't many expats in the school while you live here. - Nov 2016
Yes, my son made a lot of very close local friends at this school - Oct 2011
