by: Kaylee Simmons

The Chilean exchange student program is a program for students from the Thomas Jefferson School to come to Bellbrook High School and experience what going to high school in America is like. 

“20 years ago the Thomas Jefferson school in Chile formed a relationship with Bellbrook High School and started bringing Chilean students the equivalent of our sophomores every other year to visit Bellbrook,” Mrs. Sanderman, a school counselor at Bellbrook High School, said. “They go to Washington, D.C., first so they can see the nation’s capital and do a lot of sightseeing and touring there like the 8th graders do here. Then they come here for ten days and they attend school with their host families. They live with a host family who brings them in and shows them what it’s like to live here in the United States.” 

The major purpose of this program is to build relationships. “For the students at the Thomas Jefferson School, it’s a bilingual school so they get to practice their English skills and learn what it’s like to live in the United States,” Sanderman said. “For our families, it’s an exciting time to have a guest in their house that maybe has different interests or different ideas and then they learn and grow together.”

Sanderman stepped into the role of coordinating this program because she felt it was important and she did not want it to go away after the pandemic and some other changes in the building department chairs. She communicates with the Thomas Jefferson School to get the profiles of all the students who will be visiting, recruits families for those students to live with, and she coordinates all of the things that the students will need while they are here including airport transportation, lunches, and football game tickets. 

This year the students arrived September 7 and left September 19. Each year, they stay for about ten to twelve days. This year there were eleven students and one teacher. The students stay with a host family and that family normally has a Bellbrook High School student. The Chilean goes to classes with their host families’ students most of the time.  

“Typically the host families are chosen by volunteering. They volunteer then I’ll send the profile of the Chilean student, to make sure they feel like it’s going to be a good fit,” Sanderman said. “I’ve never been in a situation where we had so many that I’ve had to turn a lot of people away. Every once in a while I’ve had some people express interest and then kind of realize, whoa this might be too much of a commitment for us. So not everyone who volunteers hosts but usually we have enough Chilean students to house pretty much everyone who wants to host one.”

The requirements to be a host family are the student should be a Bellbrook High School student. Sometimes if needed a middle school student, but they would get dropped off at the high school. In their home they have to have space for the Chilean student to sleep, but it doesn’t have to be their own room but an individual space. They will also provide meals for the Chilean student. 

“One of my favorite experiences with this program is, one year, it actually happened this year as well, but it was the very last day they were here. They were here over their Independence Day so the equivalent of our July 4th,” Sanderman said. “September 18th we had a big picnic at my house and then all the Chilean students worked with their host families and they made traditional Chilean dishes and then we did some traditional American foods like hamburgers and July 4th kinds of foods. We had this big Independence Day celebration.

So that was really cool and I have been able to form some relationships with some of the teachers just because they’ve been living in my house and that’s been really cool. There are several of them that I continue to talk to and keep up with even though they haven’t been here in years so that’s pretty neat.” 

“My favorite part of this process is definitely having the students here and seeing them kind of learn and see how excited they are about some of the things that happen here,” Sanderman said. “And seeing those long-term relationships form. We’ve had many families who have hosted more than once because they really enjoy it so every time a group comes they host a new student so that’s been fun too.”