It is important that all members of the AFS volunteer and staff community keep school records as current and accurate as possible. This article will walk through:

Related articles include Updating Key School Personnel and How to Recording Your School Outreach.

If you haven't already, you might want to start by checking out the article on Finding School Information in MyAFS and Global Link.

How to Update School Information

In order to update basic information about a school, such as its website or phone number, it is best to go directly to the school record in Global Link. The school's basic information can be updated under the Org Info tab as highlighted in the image below.

Other information about a school such as its school start and end dates, deadlines, and what type of school is it (public, private, charter, etc.) is found under the School Description tab in Global Link here:

Scroll down on this page to find all the various information that can be updated. If you are not able to edit and save the information, please reach out to your team's School Outreach Coordinator or to AFS staff for assistance.

If the update you want to share isn’t specific to accepting exchange students (see details on recording acceptance policies below), it can still be made visible to all volunteers and staff, by using the School Notes section as seen here on MyAFS:

To update this section, use Box 22 in Global Link on the School Description tab. Be sure to click Save when you are done.

If the information you want to add is very long or detailed or includes attachments, you can make a note for others to reference the school’s contact log for more info. Then use the school’s contact log to store this information:

Use a Contact Type of "School Relations" and complete the other fields with the pertinent information.

*In order to add an attachment to a contact log, you must first save it and re-open it for an attachment option to appear:

How to Update School Acceptance Policies

School acceptance policies for exchange students display prominently in MyAFS. However, the same information is in Global Link and currently can only be edited in Global Link.

On the School Description Tab in Global Link, scroll down to box 13 to add or update information. Please be sure not to accidentally delete any important information as you make your update. And please date your comment with the actual date or the school year; this will help others know how current the information is as school processes change regularly. Here is an example:

Feel free to update other school details on this page too. Some particularly helpful fields include:

4a: The type of school
5e: does the school accept students who have graduated?
5f: does the school accept semester students?

6e & f: any known deadlines for requesting exchange students arriving in the fall (NH) or spring (SH)?

If school acceptance happens at the District (or County) level, skip to the next section.

If the school has forms they need us to submit or a policy that we should reference, you can upload these into the School's contact log. Indicate in Box 13 what can be found in the contact log. To start a new Contact Log, click New Contact Log

On the next screen, enter all of the relevant information and click Save. Please note that you can't add attachments until you save the contact log.

Once saved, you can re-open the contact log and find an upload button for attachments:

How to Update School District Policies

When school acceptance takes place at the School District (or county) level rather than the high school level, it is best to update the School District's record in Global Link so that the information will show for every school in the district while you only need to put the information in one place.

This section will cover (1.) how to determine the name of the School District if you don't already know it and (2.) how to find and update School District records in Global Link.

1. How to Find the School District's Name

There is more than one way to find this information (from a potential host family, from the internet, your own knowledge, etc.). This section will cover how to find the correct school district based on a family's address. However, if you already know the name of the family's high school and have looked up the school's record in Global Link or MyAFS, the school district name can be found in Box 19 in the School Description section of Global Link and will appear in the MyAFS school profile.

If you and the family do not know the school district for which the host family is zoned, you can also use Census data to find out.

1) Go here: https://geocoding.geo.census.gov/geocoder/geographies/onelineaddress?form

2) paste the address in the "One Line Address" field and click "Get Results"

3) at the end of the URL string in your browser, paste "&layers=14,16,18" to the end

- Example:
  - Result URL:
    - https://geocoding.geo.census.gov/geocoder/geographies/onelineaddress?address=185%20CARPENTER%20ST%20FL%201%2C%20Providence%2C%20RI%2002903&benchmark=4&vintage=4
  - With added info:
    - https://geocoding.geo.census.gov/geocoder/geographies/onelineaddress?address=185%20CARPENTER%20ST%20FL%201%2C%20Providence%2C%20RI%2002903&benchmark=4&vintage=4&layers=14,16,18

You have to do the added info to get the school district info as in this example of results:

Instructions from census: How to Find Additional Geo Info from Address.pdf (census.gov)

2. How to Find and Update School District Records

Once you know the name of the School District or County that you want to update, go to the Organization section of Global Link and type in the name of the School District as it appears in MyAFS/Global Link under English Name. If you get too many results, you can narrow your search by adding the state abbreviation and/or selecting that you are looking for an Org Type of School District.

Select the Search button to display results, and then click on the name of the district you hope to update:

The page that opens first is the School District's Org Info page, and you can type information into the Additional Details box on this page to have it appear in the school record for each school in the district/county:

Please be sure not to accidentally delete any important information as you make your update. And please date your comment with the actual date you acquired the information or the school year as this will help others know how current the information is as school processes change regularly.

If you have forms the district needs us to complete or attachments that include more detail, you can upload these into the School District's contact log. Indicate in the Additional Detail field what can be found in the contact log.

To start a new Contact Log, click New Contact Log

On the next screen, enter all of the relevant information and click Save. Please note that you can't add attachments until you save the contact log.

Once saved, you can re-open the contact log and find an upload button for attachments:

If you have any questions, please contact your School Partnerships staff person as found in the Team directory.