An Ysleta ISD student-teacher team is among only 15 nationwide selected to travel to France and Washington D.C. this summer to participate in the highly competitive and prestigious 2026 Albert H. Small Normandy Institute within George Washington University’s history department.
As the only representatives from Texas and the entire southwestern United States, the team of Eastwood High School sophomore Danity Martinez and Eastwood Knolls International School social studies teacher Paula Perales will participate in an intensive college-level study of World War II’s Normandy Campaign of 1944 through intensive research and lectures over the next semester.
The program culminates in summer travel to historic and cultural sites in Washington, D.C. – where they’ll also do research at the U.S. National Archives – and the Normandy region in France, where each student-teacher team will honor a fallen U.S. soldier from or near their hometown who is buried in the Normandy American Cemetery at Colleville-sur-Mer.
Throughout the semester, Danity and Ms. Perales will work with archival documents — including online census records, draft cards, enlistment records, letters, school yearbooks, and other sources — to identify and piece together the life of the soldier; and Danity will present the soldier’s biography at the Normandy American Cemetery. They’ll also have the opportunity to walk on Omaha and Utah Beach, explore German Atlantic Wall fortifications, and visit other battle sites, cemeteries, and historical museums before spending a final day in Paris.
The Institute will pay for each student-teacher team’s course materials (assigned readings), lodging, transportation within Washington D.C. and France, airline tickets to and from France, up to $300 in reimbursement for travel to and from Washington D.C., and most meals.
Congratulations to Danity and Ms. Perales for being selected to participate in the Institute, and for proudly representing the Eastwood, Ysleta ISD, and El Paso community!