Distant cities’ shared history forges sister school relationship The San Diego Unified School District’s Board of Education officially approved a sister-school relationship in March between a distant and unlikely pair — Cabrillo Elementary School in Point Loma and Grundschule Elementary School in Neuhaus an der Oste, Germany. Although both are K-4 elementary schools, they could not be farther apart. No obvious connection links the two schools unless one digs deep into the history of San Diego and the leadership of one man — Louis Rose. Rose was the first Jewish settler in San Diego in 1850. He quickly became a civic leader, serving as a member on the city’s first grand jury, on the county board of supervisors and on the city’s board of trustees. One of his most lasting achievements, however, was mapping out the community of Roseville — the present-day neighborhood in Point Loma that is home to Cabrillo Elementary School. In 1904, that same school was a one-room schoolhouse called Roseville Elementary School, and Rose’s daughter, Henrietta, was its first teacher. Although Rose adopted San Diego as his second home, his hometown was Neuhaus an der Oste, a small northern German town near the confluence of the Oste and Elbe rivers and the site of Grundschule Elementary School. “That got us into a conversation that we’ve got a history with this town,” said Cabrillo’s principal, Nestor Suarez. “We inquired into this sister school and we found out it was also a K-4 school.” Since the board’s official approval of the sister-school connection, the relationship has flourished. Today, Suarez, a committee of parents and several local organizations are working to develop exchanges, events and projects to support the sister-school relationship. “We were just going to have a few different kinds of cultural exchanges, but it all evolved into a more complex relationship,” he said. “We’re in the process of formalizing an exchange teacher to spend a couple of weeks with us here, tell us about their schools and help us understand how to facilitate our relationship. They will act as a contact person and we would send one of our teachers out in the spring.” The Louis Rose Society for the Preservation of Jewish History has agreed to finance roundtrip airfare for the German exchange teacher from Grundschule to visit in the fall, and the German Consulate, under the leadership of Honorary German Consul Stephan Hollmann, is looking into underwriting the costs for a German language-teaching intern. Suarez’s long-term goals include finding grants to fund a permanent German language program, increasing enrollment and having his students learn about another culture and language. For now, “We put together a package that we will send them [Grundschule Elementary School] with artwork from every grade level, books with the history of Louis Rose, videos, T-shirts, maps of San Diego and the certified partnership agreement,” he said. In addition, a computer lab has been set up for students to watch recorded lessons from the sister school to see what a typical German classroom looks like. “We’re having our students learn about a global perspective,” he said. “Long term, we have all these grand ideas, and we have a picture now of what we want to accomplish. We know what’s on the platter, now we just take one bite, then two bites to get it done.”