San Salvador - School Report Question and Answers
How would you rate the school's support and welcome/integration of new students and their families, and why?
The school administration, teachers, and counselors were very welcoming of us. We had a special open house for all new families. I think an area that could be strengthened is making sure new students and families are fully integrated. I hear this can be especially challenging at the older grade levels. Many of the families at the school know each other well, so it can be hard to break in socially. My kids easily made friends however and their teachers made them feel welcome and integrated while at school. - Aug 2023
To be fair, we arrived during COVID and everything was virtual, so nobody was positioned to do this. When they reopened, they did not allow parents on campus, so I really have no idea who anyone is. - Mar 2022
The welcome was good, but we already had the support of other embassy family members at the school. I think it might have been more confusing without the embassy support. - Sep 2020
Very good. We went ahead of time to check out schools and ABC was very accommodating arranging meetings with various teachers etc (by far compared to other schools we looked at) when we flew in for a day of touring and appointments. Later when we joined the school, we again met and toured with the whole family and everyone including the principal was super nice and attentive. Made us feel like we were welcome at the school and they would help make it a good fit. During the first week there were Welcome meetings for newcomers to the school and to each grade every year. If you are not a good Spanish speaker, they will provide meetings in English as well or sometimes with translation. - May 2018
This, I think, is one of the school's weakest points. We were unprepared for the difficulty our older children had making friends. As a third grader, the youngest made friends readily because friendship at that age is based mostly on physical play. But the older kids' friendships needed to be based mostly on communication . . . in Spanish. Their Spanish simply wasn't good enough to make friends with locals at first, and the local kids are so content with their current friends that although they were nice, they just didn't make much of an effort to befriend my kids. Even my gregarious 5th grader struggled to make friends--that had never happened to him before. - Nov 2016
A+, we felt very welcome and appreciated the efforts by the staff to reach out to us to let us know how our son was doing - Oct 2011
