How the New Trier community embraces foreign-exchange students and why host families are needed

Over the course of the past year, New Trier junior Mara Saltzman, who has two older brothers, has gained a sister in Portuguese exchange student Francisca Costa.

For the 2024-2025 school year, New Trier High School, and the North Shore community at large, welcomed five foreign exchange students from around the world through AFS Intercultural Programs. The Saltzmans are among the host families who have opened their homes and lives to these students.

Now, AFS area coordinator Beth Drucker is seeking five volunteer host families like the Saltzmans for the 2025-2026 academic year.

Of the opportunity to be a host family, Drucker told The Record, “I try to help parents realize that this is a way to bring the world to them and to their children, to support world peace, … and to add an element of excitement to their lives as you see your own culture through a young person’s eyes, and it helps you examine your own culture and your own language in a way that’s really really interesting.”

She continued, “It also helps your own children realize that taking a risk themselves can be a really rewarding experience. These are 15-, 16- and 17-year-old kids that have stepped away from everything they’re comfortable with to do something super scary and exciting, and so it’s a way for you to show your own children that that kind of a risk can lead to amazing experiences.”

Drucker herself has hosted five students over the years and has helped place 66 international exchange students with host families.

All three of her children left New Trier for a year when they were in high school to be exchange students in other countries as well. And those she hosted became family too.

“I have a daughter in Brazil, and I danced at her wedding; I have two German boys, and their kids are our German grandchildren; we have a Swedish son who now lives in the United States, and we have three Swedish grandchildren because he’s had three kids,” she said. “The exchange students become part of your family, and it just keeps expanding your connections with the world in an incredibly delightful way.”

With their two boys away at college, the Saltzmans, too, were ready to embark upon this new adventure.

Although the Saltzmans’ three children grew up in Northbrook, they also spent 10 years in the United Kingdom, where their mom, Trish, is from. As an international family, they had a unique lens through which to consider what it would be like to welcome an exchange student into their home, bringing even more globalism to their family’s life.

On her own motivation to take this leap of faith, Costa told The Record that she grew up hearing her Portuguese grandmother, who lives in New Jersey, expressing how great America is while also enjoying mainstream influences such as Disney Channel and other movies and TV shows displaying the quintessential image of the American dream.

“I’ve always lived in the same place,” she said. “My life was always the same thing — same people, same area, same city, same country — and I think it’s amazing to meet people from so many different places and see how different people live and how different it is here. I’ve learned … how to deal with different kinds of people and situations, and I think it’s helped me become more outgoing and prepared me better for weird situations that I could be in in the future.”

Pack your bags: The process

Exchange students fill out a questionnaire about themselves and their interests, but overall, the host family’s selections and decisions come first.

In addition to taking into consideration the preferences of host families such as gender and home country, when applicable, AFS strives to match students to families based on personality types and interests.

After passing intensive background checks and preliminary processes, the Saltzmans, for example, filled out their own questionnaire and were provided with a couple student profiles to review based both on New Trier’s requirements (to ensure academic success) and family fit.

AFS, Drucker said, accepts a wide variety of families from single moms to empty nesters and everything in between, including families with high-schoolers, middle-schoolers or, like the Saltzmans, one child left at home with others away at college.

When Drucker connected with The Record, she had just spoken with a man who graduated from New Trier in the early 1970s and, after he and his wife retired about a decade ago, decided to start hosting students. They are hosting their eighth student and are planning on their ninth for next year.

Host families are not compensated monetarily.

“Unfortunately, that means that people with less money who would be great host families can’t host, but it eliminates the very real problem of people hosting to get paid to do it,” Drucker explained.

But with its rich history, AFS has plenty of other support networks in place.

All aboard: Support systems

The organization began in 1915 as the American Ambulance Field Service, a volunteer corps of ambulance drivers in World War I. Following both World Wars, AFS members worked to move from wartime crises into the perpetuation of peacetime and international friendships.

That means that the organization has undergone decades of evolution and experience to help develop their support systems.

Among the support now available to students and families are: orientation and training sessions, AFS activities hosted by the Chicagoland team, medical insurance for the students through AFS, travel counselors, and an assigned liaison who serves as the primary point of contact for students and their host families.

The Saltzmans and Costa said they highly recommend tapping into the liaison relationship.

“AFS gives you good advice as a family, trying not to overwhelm [your student] too quickly,” Trish Saltzman said. “We had a 20-person family gathering the first Saturday Francisca was here,” she, Mara Saltzman and Costa laughed together, “we decided to have her liaison pick her up that day.”

Host families themselves get together and have each other for further support; they are all members of the same WhatsApp group.

Furthermore, New Trier creates a welcoming environment for students to come in and get involved in new activities, with Costa having joined girls flag football in the fall.

According to Drucker, New Trier High School has hosted more AFS students consistently over the years than any other high school in Chicagoland, an impressive feat, and she commends the administration for their enthusiasm and support.

Next steps

Those interested in becoming host families for the 2025-2026 school year can reach out to Drucker directly at druckerbeth@gmail.com.

If outside the New Trier school district, interested parties can apply through afsusa.org.

Families can also serve as emergency families, which is what the Saltzmans plan to do next year, meaning that they can provide support and a place to stay for students should the need arise, especially as they have already been screened by AFS and have experience as hosts.

“[Students] all leave changed fundamentally no matter what,” Drucker said of the exchange experience. “They understand the culture better, they understand themselves better, they’ve made friends and a new family, and in order for every student that gets to do this all over the world, it takes a family willing to open their door and their hearts to a kid they’ve never met.”

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