Western New York’s history is a rich mixture of culture and change, and our schools are no exception. As our ethnic communities have made Buffalo their home, built lives, and moved on to other areas. We’ve seen ours schools adapt to meet the needs of their ever-evolving student bodies. Sometimes those changes have gone smoothly and other times they’ve needed help to best serve their students.

    Various characteristics, such as race, gender, religion, nationality, language, and other important cultural and identity traits, have a demonstrated effect on learning. An inclusive learning environment that focus on celebrating, sharing, and learning from our differences as well as understanding the many values we share, can have positive effects on all children

    Since 2008 we have seen the percentage of English Language Learners increase by more than 60% in area schools. Many of these children are refugees and they come to school with very different life experiences than other students. Once these students are acculturated and learn the language, they have an overwhelmingly positive effect on their learning communities including increased graduation rates and student participation levels.

    For the last decade, the International Institute’s Global Education program has worked with educators to transform diversity in to the educational asset that it is. Through our cross-cultural school programming, we have helped schools enrich the educational experience for every student.

    The need for our cross-cultural school programming has never been greater and we need your help to ensure that we have the resources to assist every school with a changing student body. For just $600/school, we can work with faculty, staff, and administration to ensure that they have the understanding and tools to work successfully with arriving students and their families. Our goal for Spring-It-On is $12,000, so we can offer this training to another 20 schools. For only 80¢/student we can improve the educational experience and social integration for up to 15,000 students. Please support our Spring it on Campaign by donating and sharing it with your friends and family. Thank you for your support of the International Institute and the people we serve.