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Schools Reach Across Border
Students in Granada Hills and Tijuana meet on-screen as officials help kick off program.
By Gregory W. Griggs
Times Staff Writer

December 6, 2005

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Baja California Gov. Eugenio Elorduy joined forces Monday at a Granada Hills middle school to launch a cross-border sister-school program.

They kicked off the pilot program with a videoconference, in both English and Spanish, between students at George K. Porter Middle School and Martires de Tacubaya, a Tijuana elementary school.

Students got to chat with each other and with the governors. Elorduy told a Granada Hills student that his favorite sport is baseball. A Tijuana pupil got Schwarzenegger talking about how he became a bodybuilder.

The two governors have met repeatedly, most recently in Mexico in September.

"This is something that came out of our last visit in Baja," Schwarzenegger said. "We talked about how can we better communicate and have students talk to each other and have the pleasure of studying together. If they study together today, we know that tomorrow they will be working together much better than ever before."

Other schools with videoconferencing equipment are to join the program later. Students will also keep in contact on the Internet and plans are underway for them to begin participating in athletic competitions next year, the governors said.

"We want to promote the learning of English in our schools, and also the learning of Spanish in the schools here in California," Elorduy said.

The partnership was developed by education officials through the California/Baja Committee on Sports, Education and Culture.

Schwarzenegger pledged to work with Elorduy on numerous issues, including immigration, drug smuggling and human trafficking. He said that he wants to establish additional entry points between his state and Baja California, and that he hopes the federal government will soon create a guest-worker program to allow workers from other countries temporary legal status.