Students Fight to Keep Teachers in the U.S.

Most return to their countries within three years, said Ned Glascock, a spokesman for the program. "The idea is that teachers and others who qualify come for three years to teach about their cultures and then return home and share everything they've learned," he said. "The cultural exchange goes full circle, and they become cultural ambassadors for our country."

Since the program began in 1987, it has brought 7,000 teachers to the United States, he said, adding that "99.9 percent" of them have returned to their countries. "We're very clear with our teachers that it's not a program that's intended as a means of immigration to the United States," he said.

But parents say Chamorro, who teaches sixth-grade science in Spanish in the language immersion program at Gunston, would be hard to replace.

"Do you have any idea how difficult it is to find a qualified teacher to teach sixth-grade science, and to teach it in Spanish, and have students yearning -- I mean, they compete on their projects," said Walter Mebane, Sloane's father. "My daughter . . . stays up till 11 or 12 at night because she doesn't want to disappoint Miss Chamorro."

Chamorro is not the only visiting teacher in the area on a J-1 visa to have been embraced by a school, only to be ordered later to leave.

Jose Ruiz, a native of Spain who has taught Spanish at Walt Whitman High School in Montgomery County for three years, learned Thursday that his appeal to stay an extra year had been turned down.

Ruiz, who came on a visiting teachers exchange program through his embassy, said that he had no desire to stay in the United States permanently but that after a difficult first year he needed an extra year to truly benefit from the program and to repay the school for what it had taught him.

"Now I know how to teach, so I owe the community this," he said. "I just need one more year to give them what I got back."

Parents have written to Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), and students at the school have signed petitions and worn bracelets reading, "Save Ruiz. A good teacher is a terrible thing to waste." A caseworker from Van Hollen's office said Friday that the State Department said the extension would be almost impossible to get.

Each year since 2003, Chamorro has applied for, and received, a work permit allowing her to continue teaching at Gunston. But her current permit expires in October, and she fears that because her appeal has been denied, she will not be granted another.

Several parents have written letters to Rep. James P. Moran Jr. (D-Va.), asking him to intervene. Austin Durrer, a spokesman for Moran, said the office had received the letters and was awaiting paperwork from Chamorro.

Chamorro said she will meet with an immigration judge this year to learn her fate.

Mebane said he hopes the decision falls in her favor. "I'm for stronger borders; I'm for all that," he said. "All we're saying as a community here is please look at this on an individual level. . . . This is not the kind of person that we want to send back to another country."