Iowa schools are filling world language teacher positions and enriching classrooms through an exchange program with Spain.

At Savannah Arts Academy, one teacher is opening doors to the wider world by helping students learn a new language—and encouraging them to discover their own potential along the way.

She was thrilled to become the first teacher from a government-sponsored school in India to get a Fulbright exchange award to learn from U.S. schools. People asked two questions that clouded her joy.

Berrios started out as a classroom teacher a decade ago, but for the past six years—since her youngest child was an ...