international student symposium report plymouth christian academy

INTERNATIONAL STUDENT SYMPOSIUM

REPORTPLYMOUTH CHRISTIAN ACADEMY

Financial Overview of Running and International Program

• What does PCA do?

• We charge $18,000 if the student does not need housing and $28,000 if they need housing.

• Currently we have 1 international student who has pre-established housing


• What does the $18,000 tuition cover?

• Standard class tuition and fees (same classes and elective that our domestic students take.

• What does the roughly $9000 remainder cover?

• If we are wanting to make more money for our school and grow this program, I would recommend raising the cost so that we can create an international program that is appealing to students by what we can offer them.


• So what can we offer them?

• ESL Support: Wheaton Academy (WA) has every INTL student take an ESL course (all of them together)

• Biblical Foundations Course: Most of the students are not Christians

• English Class: All INTL students take freshman level English, no matter their grade


• Orientation Program: Helps them get to know the community and culture. A US History and Government seminar is offered in the orientation. About 4-5 days in length.

• Psychological Evaluation: More information later within this presentation. One must ask themselves, “what kind of student is coming in the door?”

• Insurance: Allows the school to verify the coverage of a student and a gives them ability to seek medical help immediately; WA has developed relationship with doctors office and hospital


• Variable Cost Model (Wheaton Academy)

• Teacher raises come from international student program

• Personnel involved in the international program is fixed cost

• This is a good system because if an INTL incident occurs between US and China the program can be negatively effected.

• Wheaton charges for $44k/year for INTL

• They provide numerous services for this cost and justify it; curriculum, insurance, psychological testing, ESL ect

• Collect money way in advance; WA is doing admissions now for next school year and already taking tuition. Can we do this?


• WA is more careful in finding host families than they are hiring teachers! (interviews, home visits, recommendations, finger printing, background checks); Huge liability issue! This is a major area of development for PCA

• Don't EVER be afraid to call home parents if there are issues; skip the agency and go right to the home!

• We need to develop policy for sending INTL students back home; what are the things that would cause them to get sent home.

• NO REFUNDS! Doesn't matter if they are sent home day 12 or 120. have this in writing to avoid intl lawsuit and issues.

• We may want to consider joining WAnet; looks like 3 Michigan schools are in the network

• Support and equip our teachers in teaching INTL students; Professional development paid for by INTL tuition.

• WA went from 3 to 56 INLT students in 5 years!!!! (for PCA that's $54,000 to $1,008,000)

How to Recruit Quality Host Parents

• How to recruit host families:

• Develop a job description for prospective host families with qualifications (Caroline has this on a PDF; she will share this with us)

• Only establish host parent/student communication about 3 weeks before school starts (Oaks Policy)

• Oaks typically fills all spots for next school year before the end of the previous year; this allows families time to prepare and allows enough time to change if needed.

• Oaks Christian does not allow female INTL students to stay in homes with teenage boys and vice versa


• Host parent agreement: lets parents know what to expect and develops expectations for families and student

• Ask teachers for recommendations of families that INTL could stay with

• Language learner families

• Consider double placements of INTL kids


• What makes a host family fabulous?

• Clarity: Know what and why they want to host; share american culture; learn and share culture; help their own children become more knowledgeable; MISSIONAL (not providing a bed and breakfast for these kids, but truly seek to reach out to these kids); current families, alumni families, staff and board members, CBC and other churches;

• Flexibility: helps connect across differences, work out disagreements, move past disappointments

• Positivity: positive orientation, looking for the silver lining in things, creates opportunities for students, "can do" attitude


• Other thoughts from Oaks Christian

• Oaks requires a 5.5 on SLATE Proficiency exam. TOEFFL is more geared to college students whereas SLATE is better for younger secondary students. Should we use SLATE or TOEFFL?

• SLATE is cheaper and more accurate; her background is in ESL; the SLATE requires reading, writing and spoken

• Oaks does not allow middle school students and recommends not going that direction; too much immaturity and emotional needs; they used to do it and moved away from it.

• Treat them as a family member; not a guest: give them chores, no computers in bedroom, dinner/movie time

• Oaks uses part of the tuition to pay for the insurance for each student; its mandatory! WA does this as well! IMG Insurance


• Tuition and Fees include: Room and board, health insurance, enrollment and orientation fees, yearbook, special fieldtrips, special dinners and excursions, college counseling, college application assistance, tutoring center, international processing services and tuition insurance

• She started this whole process of recruiting host families by cold calling people within the school community.

• October-February is application process at Oaks; full tuition and fees for the upcoming school year is due by May 1st before I-20's are issued; Initial deposit required

• Re-Enrollment is due by February


• What does PCA need to do next?

• Identify potential host families

• Develop Home Stay policy

• Enrollment and re-Enrollment process revisions

Building Support for Your International Student Program

• Nehemiah Principles

• Have an Open Heart: Nehemiah listened; Jon has a small group in his school that still refers to INTL students as "they or them"

• Listen, Observe, Learn: we need to do the same thing; learn to listen to the teens

• Get on your knees and pray: Nehemiah 1;

• Build a Vision and Start a Fire: God has given him a passion for international students

• Know What You Need and Get Organized: we tend to not do our homework


• Build Credibility: use what you have well; (Do we have administrators/board members willing to host?); Jon had 2 kids live at his home during the 1st year of the program

• Borrow Credibility: attending conferences like this; networking with other schools with a proven track record

• Show and Document Successes: TOEFFL scores, salvation in large number of students

• Be Prepared to Articulate Need: look at WA documentation and reports regarding their program; this has gotten his board and high level administration to be on board with the program.

• Pick the Right Time: Awareness-Opportunity-Resources-Choice-Action;


• Share with Passion: "Put some skin in the game"; Jon does many things with his international students throughout the day and week to minister to these kids; other people in his school have followed suit with what he is doing. Wants all staff to have a relationship with at least 1 international kid; he does not keep people on staff who are not on board with the program

• Have single-mindedness of Purpose: God told Nehemiah that there is a job that needs to be done; Jon felt the Lord's calling to work with International students

• Build Team Support: Be strategic in what we do; Jon uses strategic pictures for advertising

• Expect Opposition and Conflict: not everyone is going to be on board with this no matter what we do;

• Refuse to be Distracted: Jon believes technology is a distraction to overall development and the achievement of goals (disagree)


• Be Appreciative: thank people and the Lord for all that is being done; Jon signs all host stipend checks personally and includes a letter in each one; gives a Christmas bonus to his host families

• Be a Good Steward of What You Have Been Given: Never waste anything;

• Pray and Work to get the ob done!

• Nehemiah 6:15-16

• "Visioneering calls for bold leadership. develop a healthy intolerance for those things that have the potential to impede your progress toward what could be and should be - those things God has put in your heart to do" Andy Stanley


• "Never grow faster than you can do it well"

• 8% of his student population takes up 15% of his schools total budget

• Doesn't trust agents or agencies! They charge way too much and often are not trustworthy; they frequently guarantee admission to kids and families

• JDX and WAnet is used by Masters Academy

• Jon said to be careful with our relationship with CLC as host families. Would send mixed signals to the kids in regards to values and religion. Keep in mind our goal of ministering to these kids and that the host families will be vital, even more than us in the ministry to these kids.

How To Help Struggling ELLs

• Find out all you can about the student:TOEFFL: this will give you a good initial evaluation of their ability

• Teachers: she finds out a lot from them during the first few weeks of school

• Interviews

• Understanding home parent expectations: what are their parents are sending them here for

• 10 Competencies (rubric/grid in folder)


• Know their personalityIs the student a risk taker?

• How has the student overcome challenges before?

• What motivates the student?

• What could you do that would discourage the student?

• How sensitive are they to saving face? Will they let other students help them?

• Tendencies of gender and age?


• Know their study skillsHow does the student prefer to learn difficult content?

• How do they use their time?

• What are their stress outlets/rewards?

• Identify strengths to compensate for weaknesses

• Can the student advocate for themselves? Can they be trained to do so?


• Understand American EducationApplication vs rote memorization

• no tolerance for bullying

• importance of co-curriculars

• Importance of sleep (international students will stay up till 3-4am without hesitation)

• Communication with teacher and voicing your opinion; this is not done worldwide, especially in Asian countries


• Outside Class InterventionsLibrary of reading books at their reading level

• Teach reading strategies

• ELL Tutoring

• Take them out of an elective to focus on reading skills

• Multiple check-ins by administration

• Helping them set goals within the school as a whole and within a particular class

• Host family monitor stress and time management


• Classroom SupportObserve them in their content classes

• WA has the students in a "US Studies" class before the start of school (US History/Government) as part of their orientation class

• Encourage teachers to communicate with you if they sense ELLs are struggling (being proactive rather than reactive; this takes time to get teachers to act in this way)


• DifferentiationSurvey students as to areas of their strengths and weaknesses

• Lexile Levels: Reading

• Create specific lessons but with different area skill focus


• Warning Signs to Be Aware OfStudent cannon make continuous progress

• Student lacks motivation to succeed or tries alternative ways to advance educationally

• Student is too old for current environment

• Student depends too heavily on home country understandings

• calling home tutor, memorize vocab>reading comprehension problems)

• Student is not open for correction in study habits

• sleeping after school, staying up very late, reading in their native language


• What to doIf they continue to break policy, send them home

• If they are not a good fit, put them on academic probation immediately, and then progress to non-renewal for next year if needed.

Expert Panel Recommendations

• Oaks Christian has had to send someone home every year they have had the program. PCA needs to develop a policy and criteria

• Go visit China!

• Offer professional development for faculty and staff

• "Professionalize" your host families

• Connect with a local Chinese/Korean church

• Develop international student organization/club for INTL and domestic students

Expert Panel Recommendations

• Let them speak their language

• Make participation in a extra-curricular a requirement

• NO DRIVING!!

• Possibly consider pass/fail for 1st semester students (will colleges be ok with this?)

• Utilize "WeChat" tool to talk to home families in other country

What Next?1.Language Testing (TOEFFL JR? SLATE?) (Kim…thoughts?)

2. Identify potential host families (PCA Board? Staff? Families?) (5-7 by FEB)

3.Develop host family policy and organization (I can gather info)

4.Hire ESL teacher

5. Join Wanet and possibly other agency AND develop relationship with CLC NOW! http://wanetusa.org/schools/join-wanet/

http://wanetusa.org/schools/join-wanet/

http://wanetusa.org/schools/join-wanet/

international student symposium report plymouth christian academy

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