Seventh grade student Vala Koontz walks into her language class. Rather than taking Spanish, French or Latin, Koontz chose a class that has never been offered in the school or county until now: Russian.
“Miss K. just makes Russian fun to learn, and then she teaches us in such a way that you learn it fast,” Koontz said.
For French and Russian teacher Elena Khlyabich, this endeavor has been years in the making.
“My native language is Russian,” Khlyabich said. “When I was in the process of hiring, we had a discussion with [former principal] Mr. Fleming, so I was always interested in bringing Russian.”
Until now, the foreign language department has offered three languages. However, there was enough student interest for Russian to join the list.
“There are a number of our students on campus who already speak Russian, and there was enough interest for us to explore adding Russian as one of our world languages,” Assistant Principal Glenn Webb said. “There was quite a bit of interest even from those who hadn’t spoken Russian yet.”
That interest places the school among a small percentage. According to Russian Life Magazine, only 300 schools in the United States offer Russian as a foreign language option.
“This is the only public school that, so far in the state of Florida, offers Russian,” Khlyabich said. “There’s two more schools which offer Russian in Florida. They are in the Miami area, and they are both private.”
According to seventh grader Nikolina Tumbas, Russian has similarities to her own home language.
“I’m from Europe, so I thought it would be easier for me to learn Russian,” seventh grader Nikolina Tumbas said. “The alphabet where I come from has the same letters and the words are very similar sounding. You pronounce them almost the same.”
Unlike Spanish, French and Latin, Russian uses the Cyrillic alphabet, which poses a hurdle for some. “It was difficult for a lot of people to get the letters down because it is obviously a different script,” sophomore Brevin Olson said. “There’s 31 sounds that all have letters, plus two extra ones that modify sounds, so that was kind of difficult to get through.”
To earn the Diploma of Distinction and graduate at West Shore, students must take three consecutive years of a world language.
“If Russian is to continue, it’ll have to maintain the same level of interest,” Webb said. “ A second year of Russian 1 will depend on how many students want to take it next year.”
For students like Olson, taking Russian was an opportunity to try something new.
“Even though I’ve already completed my language, and in Spanish 4 right now, I decided that Russian would be fun to take on top of it,” Olson said.