Photo By Henry Burkle
Starting this year, Seattle Public Schools has banned international travel, impacting the function of Roosevelt High School’s Hands for a Bridge (HFB) class. The class, taught by Language Arts Teacher David Grosskopf, works to bridge communities through art, scholarship, music, and friendship.
In past years, HFB was known for providing the rare opportunity for high school students to travel internationally; one half would travel to South Africa and the other to Northern Ireland as an exchange program and an immersion experience.
While the international travel ban is not posted on the SPS website, the ban has been communicated to the HFB Foundation’s Board of Directors by email. Grosskopf stated that he feels “suffocated by [the] red tape of the district. If schools are just about skills then fine, but if they are about us as citizens in the world in relationship to each other as neighbors, then the district is being very shortsighted in all the ways that they are hampering us from getting up.”
Grosskopf also said that he will miss the growth and unique experiences that students had during this opportunity, as well as managing the relationships that HFB has with South Africa and Northern Ireland Schools.
HFB student Makelle Lindsey ‘25 added her own thoughts, “I definitely am a bit bummed, just because thinking that you’re going to travel and then finding out you’re not is kind of like ‘oh that sucks.’ But I know we’ll still find a lot of meaning and community and have a good time with it, even though we’re not traveling.”
Due to the ban, the structure of the class was forced to change. Previously, the class was built around educating and preparing students to travel while doing classwork related to travel. Now, the class has been forced to adapt; focusing on things such as analyzing books, tackling conversations about present conflicts around the world, and standard AP Language Arts work.
However, Grosskopf is excited to explore other things in the class that would not have been possible had they been traveling, such as class retreats, travel within the state, community building activities, and the possibility to host South African students.
