<p>I have this dream of starting a foreign exchange program at my kid's school.
This is a charter middle school that emphasizes Spanish and hires a lot of teachers from Spain. I was thinking about a quarter long exchange.
Has anyone been there?
My idea right now it to approach oher parents I think might be interested, talking to the parent/teacher organization and talking to the school board.
I would love to hear from people who have programs like that at their schools.</p>
<p>At our HS the chorus did an exchange with a HS in Germany. Every other year they visited each other for a couple of weeks. They did it when school was out or on break and since the calendars were different the other school was always in session. So neither was missing a large part of the HS needed for post grad but they lived with each others families, went to school for several days with each other, and toured around to get the cultural exchange and keep expenses low. It worked well but was a lot of work between the 2 chorus directors and chorus boosters.</p>
<p>We have something similar at our HS, coordinated by the German teacher. Our kids go there for three weeks in June; they come here in October. The teachers travel with them. Part of their experience is to travel a bit in the countries the are visiting, which they do during the week when the host kids are in school. It’s open only to upper-level students, and they do it every other year so that everyone has an equal chance to go. The cots is totally on the families; the school doesn’t subsidize.</p>
<p>My son’s school (PK-12 private day) has had a study abroad program for 40+ years where sophomores-- sometimes as many as 5 (which was just under 20% of that class) spend their sophomore year in either France or Spain. The kids live with a host family and attend a local school. There is a local director who keeps things on track, and a director back at the US school who coordinates everything. </p>
<p>My son lived in Provence for his sophomore year and had an amazing experience.</p>