Student Exchange Programs an Unregulated Industry  

©Gloucester County Times
By REESA MARCHETTI
Staff Writer

Guzel of Sterlitamak, Russia, 15 years old, plays basketball and enjoys running. She likes music, literature and dancing and is in the choir. She has two younger brothers. Her teacher says, "She is rather modest, kind, polite and ready to help others."

As described in a foreign exchange student agency brochure, inviting a youngster like Guzel to stay in your home may sound like a wonderful way to promote international goodwill and expand your cultural awareness.

But recent problems encountered by a host family in Pittsgrove Township have led many people to wonder who regulates the agencies that bring in these students — and what is the cost, to the families, the students and the school districts.

Gitte Hommelgaard, 18, of Denmark has become the object of controversy since she arrived in Pittsgrove last month to stay with the Pokrovsky family and attend Arthur P. Shalick High School there.

Because the school had recently changed its exchange student policy to require 90 days notice to register a foreign student, Hommelgaard was denied admission. Her host mother, Sandy Pokrovsky, appealed the school board's decision to the state department of education and won emergency relief to enroll the Danish teen at Schalick.

According to the Council on Standards for International Educational Travel (CSIET), the agency that placed the Danish student should have secured written acceptance from a school official before sending her to the Pokrovsky's home.

The CSIET, however, is a strictly voluntary system of self-monitoring to which exchange agencies may apply. Adhering to such standards is not legally required in order for an organization to place students from other countries in U.S. schools — and homes.

There are no regulations that control how or when foreign exchange students attend New Jersey's public schools.

Rich Vespucci, a spokesman at the N.J. Department of Education, said those issues are handled by local boards of education.

"It is a local decision," Vespucci said. "There aren't any state regulations that apply to it."

Nationally, exchange agencies are self-regulated via several voluntary programs. The United States Information Agency (USIA) designates non-profit organizations that meet their requirements, and authorizes them to issue applications for one-year student visas.

The national Association of Secondary School Principals' CSIET sanctions both non-profit and private agencies who voluntarily submit to their guidelines. Many agencies, such as the Cultural Academic Student Exchange (CASE), which placed Hommelgaard in Pittsgrove, are designated by both the USIA and the CSIET.

Legally, agencies do not have to register with either one in order to arrange student exchanges. Students do not need an agency to get visa applications — they may obtain the visas for themselves, or school principals here or abroad may arrange for the student to get them.

The USIA has a booklet with more than 40 pages of regulations, and operating and financial criteria, that organizations must meet in order to become USIA-designated.

So how does this federal agency monitor its 1,100 exchange programs, of which approximately 70 deal exclusively with high school students? USIA public liaison Bill Reinckens said the only way his office can regulate them is when a complaint is received.

"It is handled on a case by case basis until the situation is resolved," he said. "We don't have the staff and resources to be pro-active in our monitoring.

"However, we do a lot more than respond to complaints. We handle the general administration and procedures involved in conducting these exchange programs. As part of this effort, there is constant dialogue and a regular relationship between the USIA and the program organizations we designate."

Reinckens stressed that contrary to what many of the agencies imply in their advertising, they cannot issue student visas. They are only allowed to supply the application forms.

"The USIA issues application forms that the organizations complete for the participants," he said. "Then the participants take them to the U.S. consulate in their home country. The students pursue the visas in their country."

Reinckens suggests that people thinking of hosting an exchange student check with their local better business bureau or department of education. Unlike New Jersey, he said that some states have adopted laws governing exchange agencies.

"Various states, among them Washington, Minnesota and California," he said, "have passed laws and regulations regarding these kinds of organizations."

According to Reinckens, 23,000 to 25,000 foreign students attend public school in the U.S. annually on J-1 visas, assisted by USIA-designated agencies. One of the provisions of J-1 is that there are no repeat visits allowed.

"Students on a J-1 can be here for a minimum of one semester to a maximum one-year stay," he said. "There's another kind called an F student visa, where a student can stay as long as a high school issues an I-20 form. The high school is responsible for issuing that form.

"Another kind of visa is a B-visa, which is a visitors visa for short-term visits. For example, a student may enter the U.S. on a B-visa if they are just going to attend a class for a few weeks."

* * *

Some of the methods used by exchange agencies to locate and screen host families for foreign students can cause problems for all parties involved.

Robert Bender, the superintendent of the Carneys Point-Penns Grove district said he has been troubled to see ads for host families on telephone poles just prior to the start of the school year.

"That caused part of the problem," he said. "They didn't find families until late in the summer. I think it's a worthwhile program, but they need to find host families first before bringing the students over.

"Once they do that, it will eliminate a lot of concerns the schools have."

Bender said that although having a foreign student can be a benefit for the school, it is difficult for administrators to prepare for the student's needs on short notice.

"A foreign student is a living social studies lesson right in the classroom — there's so much to be gained by our own students," he said. "But at the end of summer where you have transfer students coming at the last minute, exchange students make it a little more difficult. We need to review their transcripts and find out where they should be placed.

"You want them to be successful when they're here. If you only have a day or two, that's not the way we like it to be. It's better to do this in time to properly place them."

Danish student Hommelgaard recently got a lesson in the problems school officials have to deal with when placing a student from another country. Although she is 18 and is taking mostly Grade 12 courses, she had to be placed in junior level history when she started classes at Schalick on Wednesday.

"It's a bit difficult when you don't know it," she said. "I know more Danish history than American history."

According to Bender, a girl from Russia who attended Penns Grove High School last year didn't work out and ended up going back home.

Penny Tarplin, the Pittsburgh area CASE director, said that it is not unusual to have to place a child as late as August.

"Sometimes a placement falls through," she said. "In May, the father of a family here had a heart attack and died.

"Or sometimes a student cancels. I've been doing this for 24 years and we learn everything the hard way."

Ads seeking host families by the Pittsburgh CASE organization can be found in locations as diverse as local newspapers to a page on the Internet.

Tarplin said that except in the few states that require police background checks for host families, her organization is not allowed to request them. Instead, she said she relies on her instincts at an in-home interview with all family members, and three letters of recommendation obtained by the host parents.

"A police check has not been necessary so far," she said. "We expect the references to take care of that — someone will spill the beans if there are problems.

"I went to visit a potential family once, and all over their wall, they had guns. Needless to say, we did not place a student with them."

Ellen Battaglia, who is the president of the national CASE organization based in Middletown, agreed that CASE representatives have to use their "professional experience" to find a safe, compatible match between a student and a host family.

"If a student calls and has the slightest qualms about a family, we take the student out," she said. "We've never had any sexual or physical abuse from the host family."

John Doty is a member of CSIET's board of directors, as well as the director of Pacific Intercultural Exchange, a West Coast-based student exchange organization. He agreed that being able to do police checks on potential families would be ideal, but not possible in most cases.

"I would feel more comfortable if we had access to criminal background checks," he said. "We would love nothing more than to tap into a database to find this out."

According to Doty, even in areas where host families are required by law to agree to a background check, the cost and length of time it would take — up to six months — can be prohibitive.

"Our program's application form asks if anyone in the family has ever committed a felony," he said, "but if you ask and the answer comes back no, what good is it? We have to assume that it's answered correctly."

Doty said his agency checks with the schools, as well as asking potential host families for personal references.

"If the school says, I wouldn't place a student with that family, we listen," he said. "Our program brought in 20,000 students in the past 20 years and never had any reported abuse."

Tarpin said that to facilitate the student and family getting along, she holds an orientation meeting within 10 days of the student's arrival in the United States.

"There usually are little things that are cultural that they have to get used to," she said.

As a local representative, she is expected to stay in close contact with the student and the family, by phone and in person, to help them through any problems during the student's stay.

Battaglia said that CASE workers are independent contractors who receive $20 a month for each student they supervise.

* * *

The CASE organization is currently under scrutiny by the USIA and the CSIET for its actions in placing the Danish student with the Pokrovsky family.

"We look for patterns of concern," said Anne Shattuck, CSIET director of operations. "Is this an isolated incident or is this a pattern? Our standards require written acceptance from the school prior to assigning a student to a family, but there may be extenuating circumstances where a phone call worked."

Because each organization must reapply annually to be CSIET-designated, the incident will not be considered until the CSIET board's regular meeting in January, Shattuck said.

Doty said that the majority of companies placing foreign students are not regulated at all.

"The USIA has stringent rules, but for-profit agencies are not regulated," he said. "There are problems of screening issues because programs don't have to comply with any standards."

Doty said that when he helped push for legislation in his home state of California, one of the biggest problems faced was identifying organizations that are not designated by the USIA or CSIET.

"It's impossible to know how many programs are out there," he said. "Some are here today and gone tomorrow.

"Part of the problem comes from schools being unaware of the nature of this business. If the schools were more selective and knew what to look for in an exchange program, I think they would be diminishing their potential for problems."

Doty said that non-designated, for-profit agencies are not necessarily bad.

"Some are excellent and have wonderful reputations," he said.

Woodstown High School Principal Steve Merckel said being a non-profit agency doesn't exclude everyone involved in it from making money.

"Non-profit doesn't mean that the people who head them up don't get big salaries," he said.

To some school administrators, the addition of a foreign exchange student to the class rolls can be a culturally enriching experience for the entire student body, but others don't accept them.

Kathleen Carfagno, administrative assistant to the Gloucester County Superintendent of Schools, said districts differ in their views on exchange students.

"We've talked about it with the local principals group. There are some schools, by policy, who say that we are not going to accept them," she said. "Others say it's a good opportunity to learn from someone from a foreign country."

Merckel cited good experiences with students placed by both the 4-H and the Youth for Understanding organizations in the school district.

"They do an excellent job of monitoring students and working with families," he said. "They usually take families known within the organization. I've worked with agencies before that don't screen the kids or families well, and don't give support when you have problems."

Merkel said the school's foreign exchange student policy, which was revised to limit exchange students to four per year, has helped the district avoid problems.

"Limiting the number you have in one year," he said, "allows you to better give assistance to the students."

* * *

The expense to the school district for enrolling a foreign student for a year is difficult to determine, but appears to be minimal. Henry Bermann, the board secretary and business administrator for the Pittsgrove district, said that the cost per student to attend Schalick is budgeted at $6,500.

"But we won't know the actual audited cost until the following year," he said.

One of the reasons the cost can't be determined immediately is that state aid, which is granted per student enrolled, is often based on enrollment figures for the previous year. So in many cases, having an exchange student could result in increased state funding to a district.

An average of four or five exchange students a year may attend Kingsway Regional High School in Woolwich Township, according to Superintendent Terence Crowley.

"The biggest thing in my opinion," he said, "is that it allows our kids to meet with other students from other countries."

Crowley said there is another benefit to the exchange programs — Kingsway students have had the opportunity to study in other countries including Japan, Brazil and Ecuador.

Staff writer Cynthia Collier contributed to this report.