Hosting A High School Exchange Student: What You Need To Know
Are you interested in expanding your horizons? Learning about a new culture? Making a new friend?
If the answers are yes, you and your family may be good candidates to host a foreign exchange student.
More than a dozen high school kids from all over the world are staying with families in El Paso while they go to local high schools and soak in our Southwest culture. However, four of those students are still looking for families that are willing to open up their homes and their hearts.
Host families must fill out an extensive application to be considered as candidates by the organization that runs the program, called the Program of Academic Exchange (PAX). You can find more information on the specifics and an application at the organization’s website.
Link:Info and application for interested families.
If you want to speed up the process, e-mail El Paso’s PAX Community Coordinator Perla Retana at perlanahi@yahoo.com.
Interested families should know that they do not get paid to host a student. Families must be able to provide a student with their own bedroom and meals. Every member of the family must be interviewed by a coordinator and pass a criminal background check before they are approved. Families can sign up for a 5 or 10 month hosting period.
Foreign exchange students in the program typically speak English at an 80% capacity. They’re enrolled in local high schools and are required to join extracurricular activities during their stay.
