ORLEANS — In her youth, Amy Burke’s family welcomed an exchange student from Spain into their Connecticut home. Ever since, she has wanted to host an exchange student in a family of her own.
Years ago, she had proposed hosting a student on a J-1 visa to her daughter and her husband, Brian, but that plan didn’t come together. In 2017, an opportunity finally presented itself: Nauset Regional High School, where her daughter was enrolled, was seeking families to host an international student for a semester or year.
“That was our first,” said Burke, who is now a social worker in Orleans. “A student from Brazil, and we still stay in touch.” The next year they hosted a second student from Hong Kong.
Enrollment in the high school’s international student program was already sinking, however, and in 2020 the program was discontinued — a casualty of remote learning and the pandemic.
This year, international students should be returning to Nauset High. On Jan. 23, the regional school committee approved an annual tuition of $17,000 for international students to enroll in any grade at the high school. Plans are for up to 10 international students to arrive in September.
To help administer the program, the high school reinstated its partnership with Educatius, a placement agency that matches interested international students with exchange programs, including at 13 public schools in Massachusetts.
Through the placement program, international students could select Nauset High School as their school of choice. The school’s arts programming, Advanced Placement courses, or the natural environment of Cape Cod could attract students, Nauset Principal Patrick Clark told the Independent.
The school has already accepted two international students for a September arrival, one from Italy and another from Germany. One of those students had applied to Nauset’s program after visiting the Cape with her family last year and searching for the high school online, according to Genna Margotta, coordinator of the international student program.
The sticker price for an international student to attend Nauset High for a full year is $44,895, according to the Educatius website. That amount includes the school’s approved tuition of $17,000, a stipend for the hosting family, and insurance and administrative costs at Educatius.
The stipend for host families is $900 per month for a private bedroom or $700 per month for a shared bedroom.
Clark said the school had based its proposed tuition rate on the median tuition at Educatius’s other participating high schools in Massachusetts. He noted that when another high school had set its tuition rate over $20,000, demand for the program had collapsed.
The students’ tuition payments will go to a revolving account used for technology upgrades, according to Nauset District Finance Director Giovanna Venditti.
“It’s a win-win when we bring students from around the globe” to Nauset, Clark told the regional school committee on Jan. 17.
“We should have compared notes,” said Margotta at that same meeting. “I also have, ‘It’s a win-win situation!’ ”
“Students from around the globe know that college education is also excellent here,” Clark told the Independent, and a high school program “may give them some cultural understanding of what it might be like at an American college or university.” Students have to pass an English language proficiency test to participate in the program.
The school is now looking for “as many host families as possible,” Margotta said. Host families “don’t need to have kids in the district, and they don’t even need to live in the district,” but they do need to have a bedroom for the student.
Margotta said she had contacted more than 40 families that had hosted students in past years and received unanimously positive feedback on the program. She asked some former participants if they would host again, since vetting new families requires additional interviews, house visits, and background checks.
Amy and Brian Burke did not hesitate to sign up again. The student they hosted in 2017 spent her junior year at Nauset, got involved in theater productions, and at 5 feet, 10 inches was quickly scouted by the girls basketball coach.
“She’d never picked up a basketball in her life,” Brian chuckled, “but it worked out great.”
The student from Hong Kong was only 15 when she arrived here. “We thought that was very brave,” said Amy, “to be so young and come live with strangers for nine months.”
Hosting was not entirely devoid of conflict, but “we felt super supported by the coordinator,” said Amy. “I think it’s part of the fun, to learn each other’s personalities. It would take anyone time to acclimate, but it’s so rewarding in the end.”
