OXFORD Miss.
The University of Mississippi
plans to open a Japanese Saturday school for children whose families are moving
from Japan to
work at a Toyota plant that is
being built in Blue Springs.
Educators say the school, which will be established at Della
Davidson Elementary in Oxford, will draw Japanese students from all over
northern Mississippi when it opens in April of next year. The school will allow
Japanese children whose parents work at the Blue Springs Toyota plant or its
suppliers to keep up with their home country.
The children will attend regular classes during the week and
take the Japanese lessons on Saturdays.
It will be the second such school in Mississippi a Japanese
Saturday school opened in Jackson a few years ago when Nissan built a plant in
Madison County.
Lynne Murchison, director of credit programs at the
University of Mississippi’s Division of Outreach, wrote the proposal for the
Japanese Saturday school in Oxford before Toyota made its announcement earlier
this year.
“The Saturday school was one of the elements that
Toyota wanted,” Murchison said. “We have been told (by the Japanese
consulate in New Orleans) that we may have as many as 40 families moving into
the Oxford area by December.”
