DAMMAM, 3 April 2005 — Earning US college accreditation doesn’t sound very exciting, but add a school’s entire student body and faculty looping the loop on roller-coasters, crashing around on bumper cars and swooshing down snow slides and the story gets more interesting.
The entire ISG-Dammam School — more than 1,000 students of 32 different nationalities from nursery school to 12th grade — recently celebrated its accreditation by the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools with a trip to King Fahd Amusement Park.
After three years of hard work qualifying for the MSACS standing, Principal Rick Barnhouse decided teachers and students deserved a little fun.
According to ISG-Dammam Journalism Class, it turned out to be more than a little fun.
High-school students were allowed to wander the park and choose their rides while students in the lower grades got some supervision from teachers and volunteers. The younger students seemed to favor a section of the park where the rides were not so daring.
For the older students and some lionhearted teachers, it was a day of laughing, shrieking and even crying as they braved the Cobra roller-coaster with its loops and seemingly sheer drops. The more subdued students enjoyed snacking on carnival as they watched the panic of their classmates and teachers.
The park’s Snow World proved to be one of the most popular attractions for both students and teachers, who skidded down the slippery slope and bounced around like skittles at the bottom as they bumped into one another.
The school expressed appreciation to Park Manager Bassem Shahroor and coordinator Ammar Mohammed Al-Ahmad and park staff who opened the park especially to accommodate the students.
And for those students hoping to study in the United States, the fun continues as accreditation means graduates are literally a rubber-stamp away from acceptance at affiliated colleges and universities.
