Slavica Park got lost on her way to her second day of school in America.

She was trying to find Emily Griffith Opportunity School. A friend drove her the first day. She rode the bus on the second.

She could muster enough English to ask a stranger where the school was.

"But I asked where is Melanie Griffith School," she said.

She found her way - in more ways than one.

Park has been at Emily Griffith for 10 years - not because she was a bad student but because she was a very good one.

She started as a student in the English as a Second Language program, which has about 3,000 students a year, a little more than a quarter of the school's enrollment.

Now, she's dean of the ESL department, moving up from office assistant and then teacher.

March 17 marks her 10th year in America, almost all in Denver.

"I really didn't want to come here," she said.

She thought she'd stay in Germany, where her parents still live.

She had dodged bullets and bombs to get out of her home country, Bosnia, fleeing the war that ripped apart the former Yugoslavia.

"Pretty much everything around me was destroyed, including the house I was at the night before," she said.

She knew she had to leave after a sniper bullet whizzed inches past her head as she was looking in her clothes closet.

In Germany, she earned a degree in psychology.

"After seven years, I was kicked out of Germany," she said. "The government said it was safe for me to go home. But there was no home for me to go back to."

She visited a cousin in California, but stayed only 12 days because the language barrier was impossible to overcome.

Another friend said Denver would be better. And it was. Lutheran Refugee Services helped her get an apartment and a job.

"I was cleaning offices in a downtown building," she said. "That's a lot of trash cans to empty."

She was recently honored by the Denver Business Journal with a 40 Under 40 award - people younger than 40 who have accomplished much.

"What means something more to me is this," she said, pointing to a framed certificate signed by her staff, naming her outstanding dean.

She became a citizen two years ago. It was about that time on a return trip after visiting her parents in Germany that it hit home.

"I was on the plane," she said. "And I was thinking to myself: 'I'm going back home.' "

She said she has found her calling at Emily Griffith, which is 90 years old this year.

Her office is decorated with posters about immigrants and the gifts they bring with them.

"Denver welcomed me with open arms," she said. "Immigrants do contribute and give back. It enriches this country so much."

massarog@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-5271

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