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During the weeks and months following my visit to Europe, frequent e-mail exchanges continued with both the Blaschke and Larsen families. As the holiday season approached, the Blaschke's ask me several times to come to Germany for Christmas. I balked, saying that I had done too much traveling for one year, plus it would be right in the middle of the Russellville High School basketball pre-conference season games.
In November, I turned the tables and ask David to come to the States for the holidays. To my surprise, I received an almost immediate positive response to my request. He sent me some dates and wanted to know if they were OK with me. Of course they were. One thing that really surprised everyone on this side of the Atlantic was that his parents were actually allowing their 16 year old son to travel unaccompanied half way around the world. This is something that Americans just are not accustomed to doing. However, Europeans tend to do a lot more traveling both in their own country as well as neighboring countries, so a trip to America is not that unusual. With tickets in hand, he had to push through a passport application since he would be traveling alone this trip. The previous trip to Orlando in June of 1999, David was under 16 and traveling with his parents, so no passport was required.
As for me, I take off work from the Wednesday before Thanksgiving to the first work day of the new year. Since I don't take many days of vacation during the year, I must do something like this or lose any excess vacation days at the end of the year that I have not taken. My Summer holiday was totally using "comp time" hours. And that pretty much eliminated any carryover of those hours.
The David was due to arrive in Little Rock about 9:00pm. I had been monitoring his flight from Müechen as well as the pre-departure status on the one from Atlanta to Little Rock before leaving for the airport. Everything was right on schedule, if not a bit ahead. He had about 2½ hours in Atlanta to make the transition from an international traveler to that of a domestic one. Plenty of time.
I was at the airport at least an hour before the scheduled arrival time of his flight from Atlanta. I had also made sure that he, or somebody using his ticket, was on the flight. I wanted to make sure that I was there when he arrived. This time would allow for just about anything that might get in my way. He arrived about 15 minutes late, but none the less, David was finally here.
Just in case you don't remember, the weather in Arkansas during his visit was the coldest in many years. We had ice, sleet, freezing rain, wind and a very small amount of snow. David really wanted to see the Russellville High School boys basketball team in action during. We had 3 games at a tournament in Harrison scheduled during his visit. Due to the weather, the tournament was cancelled. We did get to watch the guys practice many, many times, but no games. David got to shoot around with some of them after practice several times.
One of the first things we did was to check out the school system. Upon meeting with the counselor, we found that David was going to come up one credit short (English) for graduation. He must have either a "Certificate of Completion" or "Graduation Diploma" in hand before he returns to German school the following Fall. If he does not, then he must take his 11th grade classes again. With the paperwork, he will be excused from the classes, but will still have to take the tests in conjunction with his regular 12th grade classes and studies. Remember, Germans go 13 years before graduation from high school.
Several options were presented to David and I. One was to take a college-level English class. But why take a higher level course to cover a lesser? Didn't make much sense to any of us, plus that would have meant he would have to attend Tech, or some other institution in Germany during the Summer to get this credit. Also, taking both Junior and Senior English together while at RHS was an option. This was a bit more viable, but might restrict his sports activities or electives. Finally was the one that seemed to be the best for all concerted -- Independent Study through the University of Arkansas. He could take Junior English (grammar and literature) for about $200. He would have 6 months to complete each section, either together or staggered. The only requirement was that he have them completed by May 1st, 2002 in order for him to graduate later that month. He has already applied for the grammar section and will do the literature later.
Due to the weather, we were pretty much stuck at home the rest of the time. Matter of fact, we didn't even get out of the house for about two and a half days because of the treacherous road conditions, especially my driveway and street. Finally, Coach Barnes came by an took us to the post office. I had plenty of food so a visit to the grocery store was not necessary.
David spent much of his time watching NBA games on television. In Germany, they typically see just one NBA game a week and it's been condensed to about an hour. However, the NCAA and NBA playoffs are carried live. But for them a live game in California happens 9 hours later. So a 7:00pm tip-off on the West Coast, means a 4:00am (the next morning) viewing schedule for Germany. Not something one would do on a school night.
I had a few things planned for David's visit. Of course there was the tournament at Harrison -- cancelled. Going to Branson and Springfield -- cancelled. Tulsa, Little Rock -- cancelled. We did manage to make one quick trip to Heber Springs with my sister on business. But, other than that, we were pretty much stuck at home.
Now, this has been another story from the beginning. Initially when we first started discussions about David coming to Russellville for his 11th grade year (12th grade at RHS), it seemed to be a pretty simple, straight-forward process. He would present himself at the school on the date scheduled for pre-registration of new students to the District.
I had talked to the school principal and counselors. I even had the paperwork ready to send to Germany, when a bomb-shell was dropped on the whole student exchange policy, nationwide. It seems that back in 1996, the US Congress passed an immigration bill that had a definite, negative impact on foreign exchange students attending American, public-funded schools. Buried in this bill, was the stipulation that any non-resident student be required to pay a "tuition" equal to the funding provided to the school from the State and Federal governments. For Russellville, that figure was almost $5,000. This "tuition" had not been imposed, or collected on any student since the bill was passed. No one in the school system at either the local or state level was aware of it, where it was to be paid, and how it was to be collected.
According to the INS policy, collection of this fee is required BEFORE a visa can be issued to a student. This means, that the US Consulate, in the foreign country, is the collection agency. However, until one official in Spain tried to collect this "tuition" on a student coming to Russellville, it was completely unknown to local administrators. Once it was brought to the attention of local personnel and had not "escape" clause, letters were sent out to all current foreign students in the district, advising them of this "fee". Payment was requested to the Superintendents office, but no deadline was mentioned, and to date, no money has been collected.
As we all know, there must be another way. Since Thomas (David's older brother) came to the States in 1998, he used the exchange program of Educational Foundation or EF. They do all the paperwork and have orientation sessions for the newly arriving students before they are sent out to their ultimate home away from home.
So, the Blaschke's contacted EF and began the paperwork for David. This was actually cheaper than the $5,000, plus airfare, plus insurance, plus expenses that were now required for a direct placement. The one remaining factor was that during all of this, David was only going to stay with me, none else would be acceptable. On the front-end, EF had no problems with what they called a "pre-placement" agreement between the host and the parents.
All was fine until late February. That is when the EF contact in Germany said that placing David with me was "probably" going to happen. This sent chills through the Blaschke family as they thought everything was in order. I contacted my local EF representative and he assured me that nothing had changed, no matter what the EF person in Germany had said. David was staying with me. Period. End of discussion. I sent this message to David as did my local EF representative.
In a footnote to all of this, the INS has not been collecting this fee as they found it was too disruptive to the flow of cultural exchange programs nation-wide. Although it is still on the books, the fee is not being actively assessed.