Fifteen ASU students in the College of Teacher Education and Leadership were ready to leave for Latin America in January until they received an e-mail this weekend telling them the trip was canceled because of financial issues.
The students applied to participate in the Student Teaching in Latin America program in September and planned to finish their senior years in either Nicaragua or Costa Rica.
After an extensive application and interview process, the students were chosen based on their involvement in the college and academic achievement.
Kelley Blakslee, a multilingual and multicultural education senior, said she chose her major so she could go on the trip.
“A lot of us are actually planning on teaching internationally,” she said.
The night Blakslee was supposed to take her Arizona Education Proficiency Assessment — a required certification test for all teachers — she learned the program had been canceled indefinitely.
Elissa Gonzalez, also a multilingual and multicultural education senior, said her reaction went from surprise to devastation to frustratio.
“[I’m] frustrated because I put so much time, effort and money into this program, and it was pretty much the beginning to a new life,” Gonzalez said. “It was just taken away from me in a matter of seconds. I couldn’t do anything.”
Sierra Sommars, an elementary education senior said she was in tears when she read the e-mail.
Sommars and Blakslee both said they believe there has to be something more than financial problems behind the cancellation.
“We weren’t even invited in on the meetings, and to me it sounds really shady,” Blakslee said. “None of these issues have been problems in the past.”
Blakslee said that in the 12 semesters the program has run, it has had nothing but fantastic reviews.
Mari Koerner, dean of the College of Teacher Education and Learning, said the program is not cost effective.
The college was reorganized in January and has been reassessing various programs, she said.
“We’re making our supervision here at ASU on campus stronger,” Koerner said. “We cannot give them less supervision just because they’re in Latin America.”
ASU has a requirement that all student teachers are checked on three different times during their time as student teachers. Koerner said the college cannot afford to send people to Latin America to do it.
Several students said they heard nothing about a chance the trip would be canceled, except a coordinator mentioning financial issues several weeks ago, meaning the students would have to pay more.
The students from the program collectively agreed they would make it possible, even with a bigger price tag. At the next week’s meeting, they were reassured there wasn’t a problem, Blakslee said.
Some students have subleased apartments, bought plane tickets and quit jobs to prepare for this trip.
“I’m actually moving out of my place this coming month,” Blakslee said.
Sommars said an e-mail wasn’t the best way to handle notifying students about the cancellation.
“We dedicated ourselves to this program — we do weekly meetings, we’ve given up so much, we’ve been planning on this for a long time now,” Sommars said. “It automatically gives us a bad taste in our mouth when we think about the college of education.”
Reach the reporter at vajones2@asu.edu.
