NORWAY – More than $35,000 from the Freeman Foundation has helped SAD 17 become the first school district in the state to host a Chinese teacher exchange program.

“We have been very fortunate to have the grants to seed this wonderful program,” said Superintendent Mark Eastman, who last month returned from China with other local administrators. They successfully negotiated the program that will bring a Chinese teacher to Oxford Hills in September and a Oxford Hills Comprehensive High School teacher to China in January.

Eastman, who credited high school social studies teacher Craig Blanchard as the driving force behind the plan’s success, said the local cost since the first trip to China in 2002 that began the program has been $10,000.

The Freeman Foundation, a New York-based organization whose goal is to foster relationships between the United States and Far East countries through financial and informational assistance, has been the main financial contributor that allowed the program to initially develop.

According to information from Eastman, the Freeman Foundation awarded SAD 17 a $15,000 grant in 2002 that paid for three teachers, including Blanchard, to take 12 students to China where they visited the Zhejiang Normal University Middle School.

In 2004, another $15,000 grant was received that paid for high school Principal Ted Moccia, Blanchard and three other local educators to travel to the school in China.

The following year, the Zhejiang school’s principal visited Oxford Hills. In October 2006, two teachers and five students from China visited the school and stayed with host families, and later that year Blanchard, another teacher and seven students went to China using Freeman Foundation money.

Last month, Eastman and the four administrators and teachers traveled to China using a Freeman Foundation grant, school funds and personal money to negotiate the program.

A total of $20,000 was budgeted in fiscal 2007 for the program. Only $9,391 of that local money was spent for the China trip, which cost $19,823. A $7,500 grant from the Freeman Foundation, reimbursement by Eastman for his wife, who traveled with him, and plane ticket credits eased the local cost for the trip. Eastman said the remainder will be carried forward into the next fiscal year, which has a budget of $20,000 yet to be approved by a town meeting vote.

Eastman said the new budget is intended to pay for substitutes while Oxford Hills teacher Jason Long is in China. Most of his flight costs to and from China are expected to be paid through a plane trip credit. Long’s regular salary will be paid for by SAD 17 and the salary of China teacher Yang Nina (Linda) will be paid for by her school while she is in the U.S.