FORT WAYNE, IN (Indiana's NewsCenter) --- 150 students from 26 different countries, speaking 8 different languages, all part of one Fort Wayne school.

"Choose the words from each column, say the sentence," reads Edwin, a sixth-grader from Ecuador.

Two desks down, his friend Viktoryia from Ukraine reads, "We can ride bike".

Escuela.

L'ecole.

Maktab.

Northwood is a school called by many different names.

Students from Mexico, Haiti, China, Afghanistan.

Did we mention...Nigeria, Ethiopia, Chad.

In fact, name your continent, Northwood Middle School probably has it covered.

"It was surprising four years ago when I rolled in because when you think of Fort Wayne, Indiana, you're not usually thinking of the melting pot you'd see in California or New York. We have students from 26 different countries speaking 13 different languages," says Matt Schiebel, Principal of Northwood.

At Northwood, the idea that no student should go unnoticed is paramount. In the halls you can see every student's country represented by a flag.

In the classroom, a different approach, one that accomodates for other differences, two thirds of students here classify for free or reduced lunch.

"We've had home situations where kids are not living in best environments, electricity shut off in the middle of winter," says Kim Olden, a teacher at the school.

"Poverty can definitely impact learning, when parents are more worried about putting food on the table or a roof over a child's head, then sometimes education takes a back seat to that, which means the bulk of our assessment and most of our work towards educational goals needs to happen within the classroom, and not simply be relied upon to be homework," says Schiebel.

It's not necessarily a new concept, but one many teachers were hesitant to use.

Schiebel encouraged change.

The result?

So far, not too bad.

"We've gone from failure rates that have sometimes been a hundred kids per grading period down to fifteen or sixteen," says Schiebel.

"Here teachers really push you to the limit, they push you, they don't want you to fail any classes," says Mango Kim.

Kim, a very bright kid in Thailand had his own experience with failure.

Shortly after he moved here, a change in federal law forced him to take the ISTEP+ before he hardly knew the basics.

"It was very difficult communicating with friends and teachers, it was very difficult asking them to go to the bathroom," explained Kim.

He passed this year's ISTEP+ but many of his classmates in similar situations are still struggling to meet state and federal standards.

The school is on academic probation, despite all other advancements.

"We want people to understand maybe our scores aren't as high as everybody else's, but we expect one day that they will be. As far as the diversity that we have in Fort Wayne Community Schools and the value that we place on that, nobody, nobody touches that,"

Part 2 of our report will look deeper into what teachers and students describe as a nightmare situation taking the ISTEP, and what administrators believe must change.

Our viewers can also check out further coverage of Northwood Middle School by clicking on the "News Links" tab above.

Click on "One school: A World of Difference" to read several articles from our partner in news, The Journal Gazette .

Karen Francisco and Photographer Dean Musser Jr. spent several days at Northwood and share their editorial take.