Principal finds common ground in local visit

LYNN – Sheila Galo shook her head as she stood in Sisson School teacher Doreen Bucklin?s classroom Tuesday and watched two dozen second-graders sharpen their reading skills.?Our rooms are half this size and have at least 40 children,” said the South African principal.Galo runs a kindergarten through seventh grade school outside Cape Town. Not all of her 765 students can sit down while they learn because the school does not have enough chairs.?You?ll find our children sitting on broken chairs. The money doesn?t stretch,” she said.An educator for more than 30 years, Galo worked in South African schools before the racial barriers dividing South Africa fell more than 20 years ago. She said government promises to improve public schools so that they rival private schools have not materialized.?It?s much better than it was before. We no longer buy books and paper for the children,” she said.Galo flies home on Thursday and her weeklong visit to the United States – her first – included trips to Lynn and Swampscott, where she toured local schools.?Swampscott High School looks like a university,” she said.Galo and Swampscott geography teacher Judy McKenzie forged a transglobal bond in 2008 when nonprofit organization Opportunity Education matched Galo?s Siyabulela Primary School with McKenzie?s Swampscott students.?I wanted the kids to know others don?t have it as easy as they do,” McKenzie said.The students exchanged letters and communicated through Skype, an online video calling system. Awkward conversations about favorite foods and different climates grew into discussions about growing up half a world away.Galo?s students start tugging on sweaters and pullovers in August, and they finish their academic year in November. But American and South African students also share common ground: Galo said Siyabulela students take national and district assessment tests during the school year and juggle extracurricular activities with school work.?They sing anytime and everybody wants to come into the choir,” she said.Gallo stunned Deputy School Superintendent Jaye Warry Tuesday when she told her how Siyabulela?s 22 employees include teachers who divide their big classes into three groups according to ability and move from one group to another to work with students.?I?m fascinated – you have very few behavioral problems in your schools. Our children need to be supervised,” Warry said.Former Pickering Middle School Principal Robert Murphy and McKenzie, now retired, introduced Galo to Sisson Principal Jane Franklin, Pickering Principal Kevin Rittershaus and Warry on Tuesday, and Galo told them how students initially speak the Xhosa language in school before gradually learning English.Most her students come from poor families, Galo said, where parents are unemployed and alcoholism and immune system disease has killed adults, reducing households to one parent.?A problem with some parents is they are very young, they just don?t care. If the child comes in crying, I must be the mother,” Galo said.