The first floor of the building that houses International Secondary School (ISS) in Tokyo's Meguro Honcho is deserted. This is English Studio, a conversation school for toddlers and tinies that starts late afternoon.
"Yes, it is a bit confusing," agrees Allan Tsuda, director and principal of ISS, one floor up. Outside his office, in a series of cubbyhole rooms off a small open central area, peace reigns. For a school that takes children from 12 to 18 who have difficulty fitting into mainstream international schools, it is amazingly quiet and focused.
As he explains, a tutoring service for students in international schools was first founded in 1991. This became International School Support Services (ISSS) in 1995. ISS opened as an accredited coeducational middle school and high school just last year, retaining two services from ISSS, which closed in August 2001: distance learning programs linked to independent study courses in North Dakota and Nebraska, and the ESL (English as a second language) intensive program.