42 Saudi Educators Spending Year at OHIO in School Leadership Immersion Program

Khbrat participants at Nelson Commons.

Forty-two educators from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia are spending a year at Ohio University in a professional development program dubbed the “Khbrat” program, which means “experience” in Arabic.

Building Leadership for Change Through School Immersion: The OHIO Experience “Khbrat” Program is a collaborative involving the Ohio Program of Intensive English in the College of Arts & Sciences and the Patton College of Education.

“The program is designed to strengthen the values, skills, knowledge, and attitudes of Saudi teachers through professional training seminars, English language classes, and structured immersion in outstanding Ohio K-12 school systems,” said the principal investigator for the program, Dr. Gerard Krzic, Director of the Ohio Program of Intensive English (OPIE).

The educators and their families recently completed a one-week orientation that included an introduction to Ohio University, the city of Athens, the Ohio Program of Intensive English, the Patton College of Education, and the various services available on campus such as health care, emergency services, housing, and safety.

Now they are in phase two of the program, which consists of an intensive English as a Second Language (ESL) program with focus on English for academic purposes. Participants are receiving 24 hours of English for academic purposes instruction and intercultural training per week.

Phase three starts in November and focuses on building the participants’ technical knowledge and expertise through a series of course seminars in pedagogy, leadership and technology provided by the Patton College of Education and OPIE. This will be supplemented by language classes, mentoring sessions, and on-going language advising in the Ohio Program of Intensive English.

The Khbrat staff with Dr. Salah Meemar of the Saudi Arabian Cultural Mission.

The co-PIs are Dr. Emmanuel Jean-Francois, Associate Professor of Comparative and International Education; Dr. Charles Lowery, Assistant Professor of Educational Administration; and Rebecca Challenger, Associate Lecturer in OPIE. Dr. John Miller is the Co-Program Coordinator.

Phase four involves the Saudi educators visiting local public schools in the Southeast and Central Ohio regions.

The participants will wrap up phase five with capstone projects that they will implement in their home school district.