Mayor Hickenlooper Celebrates 30 Years of Multicultural Education at Denver International School

(Thurs., October 11, 2007) Denver International School, located in the Park Hill neighborhood, is celebrating 30 years of multilingual education in Denver. Mayor John Hickenlooper joined school executive director Adam Sexton, parents, students and consulate representatives from Mexico, Costa Rica and Canada at the first of what will be a year of anniversary events at the school and throughout the community.

Parents and guests were impressed by fourth grade students using their learned language to welcome them and direct them to their seats. Many of these students only speak English in the home.

To kick off the event "Pre-K" and Kindergarten students performed a rousing rendition of "It's a Small World" in Mandarin Chinese, Spanish, French, and English. Executive director Adam Sexton announced that as well as being the 30 th Anniversary year, the school year of 2007-2008 was officially proclaimed "The Year of Denver International School" by Mayor Hickenlooper and the city of Denver.

Mayor Hickenlooper stressed that with travel and business the world is a much smaller place today. "Giving your child the gift of a second language is one of the greatest gifts parents can give.Through education and exposure to other traditions, we can create a community of multi-cultural citizens here in Denver."Hickenlooper himself learned to speak Spanish while working for a year in Costa Rica and explained that he still tries to give at least one speech per year in his second language.

During a question and answer session following the Mayor's speech, Owen Honeycutt amazed the audience, and the Mayor, when he asked in fluent Mandarin Chinese, "I study Chinese right now and was wondering if you think it will be useful to me in the future here in Denver?"Mayor Hickenlooper did not hesitate in his answer-once the question was translated for him- "Yes, Chinese is one of the fastest growing languages in the world and it will be extremely useful to speak and understand Chinese in the future."

Denver International School (DIS) was founded in 1977 as a French immersion program school.It is accredited by the French Ministry of Education and is part of a network of 400 French schools in over 126 countries.By 2005, when it relocated to the Park Hill neighborhood, DIS had grown to include immersion programs in Spanish and Mandarin Chinese.The Education Department of Guangzhou, China has accredited the Chinese curriculum.This year, DIS celebrates its 30 th year with more that 200 students, aged three-years to fifth grade, that come to Park Hill from all over the metro area.