Freshman Adrielly Dacruz moved to America in 2017, just before her eighth grade year, from the east coast of Brazil.

“When I came to the United States I didn’t speak english,” Dacruz said. “The language barrier was difficult for me.”

Besides struggling with English, Dacruz described being away from her family in Brazil as the hardest part of coming to America.

“My whole family lives in Brazil, and I’m here with my mom and my auntie, so it’s kind of difficult especially on special dates, like birthdays and christmas and new year,” Dacruz said. “We talk on Facetime and we always cry, but they know we are here to be better.”

Dacruz and her family left Brazil in search of opportunity for a better future, and Dacruz accounts that her family back home understands that.  

“I wish I could grow up in a good life, I want to be something more,” Dacruz said. “We moved here to have a future. Brazil is a good country, but we didn’t have a future there.”

In Brazil the student-teacher ratio is 28 students to one teacher. This impedes the teachers ability to help and handle every student, says the National Education Policy Center, after conducting research on the issue in 2014. In the U.S, the student-teacher ratio is 14 to one, which allows for more one on one time for the students and teachers.

In her home country, electives were not an option, and Dacruz is thrilled to have the option to take the classes that help her pursue her life goals, and learn about what she is interested in.

“Math in Brazil is hard, and all you take is math. You cannot take art theatre or anything, just math and study classes.”

From the other side of the world, Junior Doruk Ozyurt moved to Frisco from Istanbul, Turkey just a few days before the 2018 school year. Ozyurt, like Dacruz, says that the language barrier is one of the hardest things to adjust to, even though English is taught from elementary to graduation in his Turkish school.

“The hardest part is communication,” Ozyurt said. ”The accents are so different here, with Hispanic, American and other voices, it’s just too hard to get used to.”

Another adjustment Ozyurt had to make was to the structure of the school day. Along with Turkish education placing an emphasis on different subjects, Ozyurt is faced with learning about a very different school structure.

“Basically the education system is so different in Turkey, because in Turkey there is only one classroom and the teachers come into that class,” Ozyurt said. “Here, you go to every class so it’s different and it was so difficult to get used to.”

Another main difference in his school life, is that some subjects are taught at a different level, which proves difficult for Ozyurt.

“I went to a math placement test, and I think I failed,” Ozyurt said, “I learned at a low grade in Turkey, here it is higher.”

Similar to Dacruz, Ozyurt and his family came to the U.S to help prepare them for success in the future. In Turkey, the literacy rate only reaches 87 percent, while the U.S. reaches 99 percent, suggesting that American education yields better results.

Not only does the campus have many students from global locations, but some of our teachers hail from abroad. French teacher Dina Baalbaki moved from Senegal on the west coast of Africa, and has lived in the U.S. for the last 24 years.

“I was disappointed because when I first moved to this country I applied for an American citizen papers and the immigration and naturalization services took forever to allow me to go back and visit my family,” Baalbaki said. “I was in this country for ten years, despite the fact of hiring lawyers who lied to me. I paid so much money and ended up two years later talking to a lawyer who had not done anything about my case. I honestly thought this was something you would see overseas like in Africa, and not in this country.”

Since she is a foreign language teacher and was taught English as a child, Baalbaki believes strongly that a second language should be taught from a younger age in the United States.

“I’ve always said that teaching another language has to start at a young age even,  kindergarten, and you start slowly and surely to implement that in their brain so it becomes a second nature.” Baalbaki said. “Waiting until you get to high school to learn a second language or middle school it’s still possible, even as an adult, but the point is it would become so much more natural to learn the language and its very beneficial to the person thats learning it and to the world eventually.”

Being a teacher, Baalbaki recognizes many differences between the Senegal and American student-teacher interaction.

“What shocked me, actually, as a teacher was that here is a certain way you hug the kids, there is a certain way you talk to the kids,” Baalbaki said. “Where I’m from you just speak your mind off.”

Baalbaki also states that even the most mundane activities, like driving are completely different in Senegal and other parts of the world.

“The most shocking thing was actually driving on the highways, because in Senegal, it’s totally different,” Baalbaki said. “Traffic in Senegal is pretty tough, but here, you have different lanes and laws.”

Baalbaki recognizes all her struggles from being an immigrant, and believes it has strengthened her as a person.

“I believe god does his ways the way he does them for a reason and now that I look back it has strengthened my character, it has strengthened my personality,” Baalbaki said. “It has made me a more understanding person to others and I viewed the world extremely different compared to most people.”