9 Phila. Spanish students journey to Puerto Rico

Alia Richardson packed her bags three weeks ago.

Nadiya Gipson is not a bit nervous about her first plane ride.

And Liam McShea can't believe that after two solid years of selling endless quesadillas, candy bars, rubber wristbands, T-shirts, and school supplies, his Spanish Club's spring break trip is finally here.

On Thursday, nine Constitution High School seniors and two teachers will board a plane for Puerto Rico, a journey that very nearly didn't happen.

The small but plucky group raised the $12,000 that felt like an impossible goal, working "so hard," Spanish and English teacher Kathleen Melville said, to make it happen. Melville and Jesse Todd, another Spanish teacher and trip chaperone, also overcame an eleventh-hour "no" to their trip request from the Philadelphia School District, scrambling to replace a seven-day Mexico City visit with a four-day San Juan trip.

The idea was born two years ago, after Melville took students to a Mexican restaurant close to the law-and-history magnet school on South Seventh Street in Center City. Everyone loved ordering in Spanish and conversing with the staff in the language they loved to study.

Wouldn't it be cool, they thought, if they could truly immerse themselves in an authentic Spanish-speaking culture for an extended period of time?

It wasn't that easy, of course. A group of Constitution High students traveled to Latvia once, but that was a grant-funded trip. This time, they'd be on their own to raise the money.

"It's an idea that's taken for granted in other school districts - that kids can go on international trips," said Melville. That's not the case in Philadelphia, where for many students, raising the required $500 on their own sometimes seems like an insurmountable challenge.

One student held a flea market outside her house. One picked up extra shifts at a fast-food restaurant.

Melville and Todd chose the nine students carefully - partly for their Spanish skills, but also because of their personalities. They are the students who show up early and stay late, who aren't all straight-A students but who are enthusiastic and dependable, the pleasure-to-have-in-class types.

Melville first met Zamiyha Fischer when the girl was a ninth grader in her Spanish I class. But even after that first course, Fischer, who survived childhood brain cancer, would return to Melville's classroom, bubbling with excitement about what she was learning in Spanish II.

"Spanish is something she was really connected with," Melville said.

The group features a Public League tennis champion, Gipson; a future ROTC member, McShea; a dedicated volunteer in the Spanish-language immersion program at Independence Charter who wants to be a city language teacher, Richardson; a gifted poet, Charmira Nelson; and the student government vice president, a native of Puerto Rico eager to show her birthplace to her classmates, Ashley Gonzalez, who just heard she had won a full scholarship to La Salle University.

In Todd's classroom Wednesday, the group went over last-minute details. Everyone had packed, with plans to meet before the sun rose Thursday for their early-morning flight.

"I can't wait for our picnic on the beach," said Richardson. "I just want to see that clear water."

English teacher Alison McCartney, another Spanish Club sponsor, handed each student the tissues and hand sanitizer she'd bought for them. They reviewed their itinerary - museums, hikes, a salsa dance exhibition, dropping off supplies for a needy elementary school, celebrating Emancipation Day, the anniversary of the 1873 abolition of slavery on the island.

Todd and Melville joked that they could write travel books now. Two months ago, the district's Office of Risk Management nixed the Mexico City plans - too dangerous, officials decreed.

In the span of a single day, Todd and Melville regrouped, planning a trip to a spot of which the district approved. (They had to shift from a week to four days because of the higher cost of travel to Puerto Rico.) They tried to use travel agencies that specialize in student trips, but their shoestring budget wouldn't stretch to fit those prices, so they hunted for deals themselves.

"We were ready to give up," Gonzalez said. "But our teachers wouldn't let us."

So Gipson will board her first flight after all. And Roshonda Matthews will have to face her fear of bugs, which she hears are plentiful in Puerto Rico.

Constitution High principal Thomas Davidson poked his head into Todd's classroom Tuesday, beaming at the students' excitement.

"We pride ourselves on extending the classroom walls into the community," Davidson said. "And now, into the world."