Spring 2013 TEMPO - Tampa Preparatory School

on the terrapin trailspring 2013 tempo9Adonis Rwabigwi on the court.Tampa Bay Times as “one of two vitalcogs” on the team which is making a runfor the State Championship for the secondconsecutive year. When he graduateshe will attend Furman University andwill take many classes at ClemsonUniversity, too, one of the colleges in theFurman consortium in South Carolina.He plans to major in engineering andarchitecture.Adonis is also a serious artist. “Iexpress myself by drawing,” he said. Hestarted drawing on blackboards as a childand later learned to use pencil and charcoal.“My father is an architect,” he said,“and we used to see which one of uscould outdraw the other.”“I’m better with pictures than words,”he said. His art skills improved when hecame to Tampa Prep. He has been workingon a self-portrait this year (see backcover picture) and is nearly finished.In it, he looks straight out of the picture,his large hand rests on a basketball,behind him a beautiful, delicate, blueand coral design, reminiscent of handscreened silk. The design is based on thefour quadrants of a basketball, but thecolors are what you see. TTampa Prep basketball players (l–r) Emily Souza, 14, Amanda de Souza, 16, and Abby Parry, 18, listento their coach during practice. From Brazil, de Souza is one of 17 students participating in the school’sinternational exchange student program. Photo courtesy Tampa Bay Times by Edmund D. Fountain.It’s a New World ViewTampa Prep’s international exchange isgrowing. This year, 17 students focus onstudies and sports.by keeley sheehan, times staff writertampa – When Valentin Mortier competesin a tennis match at home inFrance, his friends don’t often come tosee him play.But when the high school junior startedplaying on sports teams at TampaPreparatory School, where he’s attendingas an international exchange student, hewas surprised to see so many classmatesat his games. ‘A lot of students fromschool come to see their friends,’ he said.Mortier is one of 17 internationalexchange students staying with local hostfamilies and attending Tampa Prep thisyear. The school has often had internationalstudents, but it began a dedicatedinternational student program two yearsago, starting with eight students. Lastschool year, they had 15.Families abroad, especially fromEurope and South America, who want tosend their children to study in the UnitedStates, are interested in diverse nondenominationalprivate schools in urbanareas like Tampa, Miami or Jacksonville,said Dennis Facciolo, Tampa Prep directorof admissions.‘They like the mosaic of studentshere,’ he said.The school has drawn the attention ofinternational agencies placing students inAmerican day schools. Tampa Prep nowworks primarily with EducatiusInternational, cci Greenheart CulturalExchange programs and sts, all companiesthat work with families in variouscountries to find educational programs fortheir children abroad.International exchange students gothrough the same admissions process asAmerican students, but also have to takea test to demonstrate English fluency.The agencies then set the students upwith host families in the area. Some areTampa Prep families, and some aren’t,though most have children who haveattended other private schools.