As the first day of school approaches each year, students from across all grades look forward to meeting the new American Field Service (AFS) student, but this year, that excitement was met with no payoff. Despite efforts from the AFS Parent committee to find a willing host family, none worked out.
In the past, Parker has hosted an exchange student from a foreign country, culture, and background who continues their studies at Parker while also learning about Chicago. This year, the AFS student heads are Julia Peet, Alex Fidler, Natalie Drake, and Quinn Kass and the faculty advisors are Victoria Lee and Julia Garner. Normally, each year parent heads, the advisors, and the National AFS Organization come together to pick that year’s AFS student.
This year, the Parent committee sent four to five emails and held a Zoom meeting asking for volunteers to host a foreign exchange student. There were few families who were interested and of those few, many had doubts that ended up preventing them from accepting. Even though many families at Parker might have the availability and resources to be able to host a student, it’s still hard to find someone according to the heads.
Former Upper School French teacher and AFS advisor Lorin Pritikin was a very hands-on and active leader of Parker’s program and had held the role for many years.
“Ms. Pritikin has been the heart and soul of AFS at Parker for decades,” AFS parent head Shauna Peet said. “She poured so much energy into her role as faculty advisor and ambassador of the program.”
Peet said she would go out to lunch with the AFS student, plan activities to introduce the student to the community, and make sure the student had everything they needed to succeed and feel included. Peet said that there has not been a time where two or more families have wanted to host a student.
The AFS parent heads presented the AFS program to the parent association to spread more awareness to potential future hosts. Another way they do this is by having an MX with the current AFS student. But since there is no AFS student this year, the club needs to figure out another way to raise awareness and encourage families to host. Normally we hear about the AFS students themself, but now we will hear about families and students who have hosted previously.
The committee decided to have an MX sharing about AFS and how eye opening it is for people to take part in. Julia Peet says the MX will be “breaking the ice, talking about how we could help support the student and how it’s not all on the host family.” Their goal is to talk about the benefits of hosting an AFS student in your home and highlight the process activities to show how enjoyable and rewarding it is.
The committee has had major milestones throughout the years with the AFS program. AFS faculty advisor Julia Garner, a Parker alum, remembers her experiences as a student with an AFS student fondly. “I had a close friend who hosted three AFS students over the years, and I just know what a transformative experience it can be for those students,” she said. “One of [the AFS students] even ended up relocating to Chicago and then sent his kids to Parker.”
“I think those ties with the school can be really strong, and I just think it’s a really special thing given our mission and how we talk about our students becoming global citizens,” Garner said. Overall the committee has positively affected many people, and Parker hopes to have more memorable experiences with future AFS students.
