Members of TI's Korean Diversity Initiative's Greater Dallas Korean School Community Involvement Team, which won a 2012 TI Founders Community Service Award, (left to right, top row) Do-Kyoung Kwon, Ki-Don Lee, Donghoon Han and Kil-Soo Ko – (left to right, bottom row) Sang-Yong Lee and Brandon Jung.

Making Korean language and culture education available to Korean-American students in the Dallas area is a passion for the dedicated members of TI's Korean Diversity Initiative's (KDI) Greater Dallas Korean School (GDKS) Community Involvement Team (CIT).

Through their unwavering volunteer support, six GDKS CIT members have directly impacted more than 1,500 Korean-American students since 2003 and increased the number of students and teachers at the school by 35 and 30 percent, respectively.

For the past nine years, TI Dallas-based employees Sang-Yong Lee, OMAP Korea automotive marketing manager; Brandon Jung, OMAP Korea business development manager; Kil-Soo Ko, failure analysis engineer; Donghoon Han, test engineer; Do-Kyoung Kwon, Member of Technical Staff; and Ki-Don Lee, Member of Technical Staff, have enabled significant improvement in the GDKS students' Korean language and cultural proficiency by serving in various roles as volunteers.

In these roles, GDKS CIT members have established a community and professional network, populated a customized Korean language and cultural curriculum for young professionals, established a website that provides educational resources, and increased interest and support for the area's Korean-American community.

"GDKS has been administrated successfully in a remarkable system under the distinguished leadership of this TI team during the past nine years," said Sunhee Hong, chairperson of GDKS and chairperson emeritus of the Dallas/Ft. Worth Asian American Citizens Council.

"I am sure that the result of their time and efforts has led not only to the quantitative expansion of the school, but also to the quality of education of the Korean language, history and culture. It also promoted the authorization of a Korean language credit for Texas public high school students from the Texas Education of Agency."

Long-term volunteer support
The dedicated GDKS CIT members have provided ongoing volunteer support in the following key areas:

• Financial system stabilization led by Sang-Yong Lee and Kil-Soo Ko. As the school's financial officers, Lee and Ko have maintained a healthy monetary system. Through their continuous efforts, the school has escaped from its chronic deficit and can now sustain more than a year without funding. Lee and Ko also made the school's financial system more transparent by providing financial reports at GDKS's annual general meetings. In addition, they have built a successful corporate and individual sponsorship program.

• Education system innovation led by Donghoon Han and Brandon Jung. To improve the school's quality of education, Han and Jung improved teacher quality. Han leads the planning of a teacher's education day held at the beginning of every semester and ensures the GDKS teachers attend the annual National Teacher's Conference sponsored by the National Association for Korean Schools. They also host a popular annual teacher's appreciation event. Additionally, Jung organizes all of the textbook selection procedures and takes actions to find cost-efficient distribution methods.

• Creating the GDKS website led by Brandon Jung, Kil-Soo Ko and Ki-Don Lee. One of the school's long-term wishes was to have its own website and the ability to communicate with students through the site. Jung and Lee took ownership of planning and building the school's website, which was launched in 2009 at http://www.gdks.org. In addition to reducing the quantity of paper copies previously used for school notices, the site provides fast and efficient communication between teachers, students and parents, and enhances the school's image.

• Launching a mentoring system led by all GDKS CIT members. When the school became recognized as an exemplary organization, a high volume of high school students began applying as volunteers. To build their leadership, the team launched a Class Leader Program that enables the students to actively support the teachers as leaders. All GDKS supporting team members serve as mentors for these high school students.

• Initiating and launching the Credit by Exam course led by all GDKS CIT members. Launching the Credit by Exam (CBE) Korean language course in Texas high schools was a big achievement accomplished by the GDKS board. The board initiated and worked for many years with Texas government and the UT-Austin language department on the course's approval. The GDKS board is responsible for developing the textbook for this exam, and the Korean education center provides a budget for this effort. The GDKS supporting team played an important role in financing and planning to launch the Korean CBE.

Over the years, the GDKS has received numerous accolades and awards as an exemplary school. For example, the school received the 2011 Best Asian Community Service Group award from the Dallas/Fort Worth Asian American Citizens Council and was awarded the Excellence in Education award from the Greater Dallas Asian American Chamber of Commerce (AACC) in 2005.

"I have seen the growth of GDKS in the past couple of years, which no other Korean school in the U.S. can match," said Jungsoo Park, director of the Education Center for the Houston Korean Consulate. "In terms of growth, as well as solid operation and management of the school in the past decade, it stands out on the top among more than 800 similar Korean schools in the country."