All teachers and staff will have the opportunity to apply to travel on a cultural trip to South Korea this summer.

“A dozen or more teachers will be invited to travel together to Korea on a Korean cultural and history tour that’s being funded by Harvard-Westlake families,” Head of School Jeanne Huybrechts said.

The trip is being sponsored by the Gunter Gross Global Fund and Gyu Si (Jeong ’18) and will be led by history teachers Larry Klein and Kyong Pak.

They will also be working with Aidan Koh (Paul ’05) who has run similar faculty trips at St. James’ Episcopal School, a private elementary school in Los Angeles. The attending faculty will visit Seoul and Jeju Island as well as listen to lectures on Korean history and culture throughout the trip. They will visit schools and museums in Seoul and climb to a world heritage site on Jeju Island. Specific information including dates and itinerary have not yet been finalized, but will be announced at a later date. Huybrechts said the goal of this year’s trip is to help teachers become more globally conscious and experience non-Western cultures.

The school organized a similar trip in 2009, during which 12 teachers toured China and learned about topics like air pollution and authoritarian rule.

“It was in some cases just a transformational experience for the teachers,” Huybrechts said. “Many teachers have never been outside the United States let alone to Asia.”