Host families sought in Ventura County

The American Dream, by most accounts, conjures up thoughts of financial security: Gainful employment in that dream job; a generous savings account; those copious social security funds to look forward to post-retirement; and a disposable income more than providing for that big family who lives in that big dream house and embarks on that big annual vacation.

Arguably, 2008 could be remembered as the year that dream had been dashed for many a denizen of the United States. Families, already strapped with supporting entire households, have been learning to cope with escalated costs of commodities once taken for granted: gas, food and other everyday conveniences. Providing for another mouth to feed seems an impossibility for many.

That’s the problem one nonprofit group, and others like it, is facing in trying to entice Ventura County families into hosting foreign exchange students for this school year — welcoming that extra family member for a certain duration.

“We need to find families first, in order for them to arrive. The way the economy went this year, it’s a little more difficult,” stated Lillian Clemente, a coordinator with the Students Travel Schools Foundation (STS), an Arizona-based organization that helps place high school students from overseas into American schools for up to one year’s time.

The foundation has 400 foreign students in its database. According to Clemente, herself a former exchange student from Brazil, 350 of them are already placed across the country; of the 50 remaining, STS’s goal is to assimilate four or five students into Ventura County. But it’s been a daunting task even for that small number, with the shaky economic state.

“What we try to tell families is, they don’t have to go out of their way,” she said.

The group’s drive is in promoting the quality of life and the mutual sharing of different cultural backgrounds that families and exchange students can experience together.

“The students are coming to adapt to the family’s situation, the family’s culture,” Clemente said. “Your life will still be the same; it’s not supposed to change. They’re the ones coming to learn and adapt to this new environment.”

She added, “The students are coming here for the experience. It would be different if they were coming to graduate, stay and go to college.”

Different, that is, because the possibility exists that many foreign students who study abroad in the U.S. may not be able to graduate nor have credits transferred to their home schools, serving to delay completion of the academic studies.

“It kind of depends. It’s a student-by-student, case-by-case basis,” said Jeff Davis, director of secondary education for the Conejo Valley School District in Thousand Oaks. “It all depends on what their country is going to accept.”

Typically, Davis explained, students in his district will study there for one year, after which their grades are forwarded to the placement agency in charge of the exchange. Those marks are then sent to the student’s home country, where the office of education for the particular school looks at their transcript and makes a determination.

In most cases, it has not been a problem, noted Davis. Last year, a Norwegian student graduated from Thousand Oaks High School.

According to a host family’s youngest son, Jake Emge, two Asian exchange students graduated from Moorpark High School last year, where he is currently a senior.

Emge’s family will be hosting for this academic year a student from France via STS. But although it may seem a financial struggle to many parents to take on an extra family member, Emge, 17, said the prospect of welcoming an adopted sibling into the fold is gaining in appeal, at least among his peers.

“I think everyone’s trying to get a foreign exchange student because it’s a cool experience,” he said.

For three years, the Emge family took it into consideration.

“The time was right,” said Jake’s mother, Tami. “It’s a compromise,” she said, adding, “We don’t feel it’ll be a big financial strain at all.”

The amount of exchange students within any one school district varies too much from year to year to determine if hosting is becoming more popular. In the 2006-2007 school year, there were four exchange students at Chatsworth High School, where Davis was formerly principal.

“Then there were years I had none. It’s just the way it works out. It’s hard to say if there’s a trend either way,” he said.

And what about a foreign exchange the other way? Jake Emge said his brother, now 25, studied abroad when he was in high school.

“That’s pretty much my plan, too,” he said.