Happy August School Outreach Coordinators!
As we enter the 2024-2025 school year, we’re going to do things a little differently for the School Outreach Coordinators. The School Outreach (SCOUT) Advisory Group and I would like to give you some training to help you grow the knowledge and engagement among volunteers in your teams.
Short version
- Register for the School Outreach training on September 17th.
- Look for a new AFS champions (under age 32) to support your goals
- Upcoming Communications to Schools
- School Representative Newsletter Details
School Outreach Coordinator Training
I am building a highly interactive webinar for all School Outreach Coordinators (SOCs) across the U.S. to be held on Tuesday, September 17th. I hope you all can make the time in your schedules to join me and some members of SCOUT. Please register HERE. Our primary topics will include the following:
- Distinguishing between the Coordinator and Representative roles
- Skill-building among your team
- Recruitment strategies for school outreach volunteers
- In-depth learning about ONE of the major resources/opportunities that EVERY team can be using to give back to schools
There will be time for Q&A and it is my hope that you’ll be able to get to know your counterparts through this process as well. My hope is to hold one of these trainings 4 times per year and I believe in setting the next date before we finish the meeting, so if you have specific routine events that would prevent you from attending that occurs on the same night each week, please share that with me so I can do my best to work around that and include as many of you as possible.
New AFS School Champions
For those of you in the following teams, you will have a NEW volunteer or at least an AFS Champion that has recently attended the AFS Youth Assembly on one of 13 scholarships that we awarded. These young educators are highly motivated to leverage AFS resources and opportunities.
- Florida Area Team (4)
- Greater Cincinnati Area Team
- Greater Indiana Area Team
- Greater Minneapolis Area Team
- Heartland Area Team
- Michigan Area Team
- Missouri Gateway Area Team
- Northwest Ohio Area Team
- Pacific Cascades Area Team
- Dallas Area Team (Unrepped Area in Louisiana)
School Outreach Communications
- The Back-To-School Global Educator Newsletter will be sent at the end of August (or first week of September). It will include the following items:
- Launch of 2025 AFS Global School of the Year and Global Educator of the Year Awards (timeline and nomination details will be available on the website and MyAFS Help & Learning)
- Opportunity for French teachers to nominate up to 3 students for the 2nd AATF/AFS-USA summer program scholarship
- Opportunity for teachers to sign up for a short presentation from staff and/or alumni to learn about the 3 major Dept. of State scholarships: NSLI-Y, YES Abroad, CBYX
- Launch of new AFS Help & Learning for Educators
- Recap of the 2024 AFS Youth Assembly
- Opportunity for schools to become a 2024-2025 U.S. Department of State Medallion Member School.
- You, your School Reps, or your team's liaisons should be sending a message to all of their schools to introduce the hosted students to them once they have arrived. Here's a template.
- In late September, we will plan to send the U.S. Department of State Medallion Member School digital badges for their hosting of a Sponsored Programs student.
School Representative Newsletter
In the past, SOCs and School Reps have received almost the same monthly newsletter. This month the newsletter will be different and much more focused on leadership strategies and team-oriented information and the School Rep newsletter will focus on very specific information that pertains to an individual’s relationship with a local school. You will receive BOTH newsletters this month, but if you would prefer to ONLY receive your SOC newsletter, I am happy to reduce the clutter in your inbox and simply include a copy of the link to their School Rep newsletter in the SOC newsletter.
Did you know…
AFS-USA is granted a minimum of 10 nearly full scholarships for educators under the age of 32 to attend an empowering and engaging 3-4 day learning and networking experience in New York City in mid-August every year. These scholarship winners are asked to become an AFS-USA volunteer when they return. These educators are under the age of 32 and have a lot of potential to be a part of your local volunteer team? It costs you about 5 minutes to nominate an educator in any given year. Do you want a new, young volunteer every year to join your team that has an inside connection to their school? Sign up here to be notified when the nomination process opens for next year’s AFS Youth Assembly and start thinking about who you will nominate.
What do you need?
As we plan the remainder of the SOC trainings, I’d like to know what you need to build those elements in. If there are specific areas that you would like to learn, please let me know.
Thank you for ALL that you do for AFS-USA. I’m very aware that you likely have other volunteer roles beyond school outreach, so I am appreciative that you are willing to spend some time and energy engaging schools!