In this article, all volunteers can access the routine communication provided to the School Outreach Volunteers. This newsletter shares opportunities for volunteers to enhance their skills in working with schools as well as tips, tricks, and resources that can be sent directly to any educator/school regardless of a volunteer’s role with AFS. We hope you find this information helpful as we know many volunteers interact with schools so knowing how to set AFS apart from other organizations will continue to be important in those interactions.
2024 December
AFS School Representatives – Lots of deadlines and opportunities coming up in early 2025, so now’s the time to get things in the inboxes of educators so they can work on nominations and applications over their winter break!
Here’s what you’ll find in this edition:
- Timely resources and opportunities to share with schools/educators
- Registration for the monthly School Representative Meeting
- Details about recent & upcoming communications to schools
- Handout to share with schools with hyperlinks and deadlines for opportunities
OPPORTUNITIES TO SHARE WITH SCHOOLS
AFS Global Up Americas – Virtual Exchange
Intended Audience: High School classrooms only. Perfect for Spanish, Social Studies, Global Studies, Theory of Knowledge, and many other classrooms.
- See this document for social media and email templates
- If you’re curious about where the schools who participated already this school year and last year are located, please visit our informational article on MyAFS Help & Learning.
- The FINAL opportunity for a teacher to get the required training to participate starts on January 28th, so please share this opportunity quickly!
Two Scholarships that have deadlines on January 15th
#1 – AFS-USA/Lingco Fully Funded Summer Scholarships
Intended Audience: Counselors, Administrators, World Language Teachers
- Check out this webpage to learn more about a BRAND NEW set of 6 FULL scholarships for world language students to study abroad this summer.
- Here’s an email template so you can share this with local world language teachers! They can nominate as many students as they want by January 15th. Students can start their applications as soon as they are nominated by their teacher!
- This is a tremendous way to give back to a school because it doesn’t cost them anything to have a student go abroad and become a global citizen over the summer months!
#2 – AFS Global STEM Academies Scholarship Opportunity
Intended Audience: Counselors, Administrators, STEM Teachers
- See this webpage to learn more about the AFS Global STEM Academies Scholarship Opportunity.
- Get an email template and social media blurb/graphic here. Also, here is a 1-page handout that you can share via email with a high school STEM teacher!
- You can also encourage a hosted student to take the flyer to school and share with U.S. classmates, teachers, or the counselor. Applications are due on January 15th!
AFS Effect+ for the Classroom Professional Development
Intended Audience: Secondary teachers of any subject area (Grades 6-12)
- See this document for social media and email templates
- Feel free to read more about the scholarship and opportunity on the website here.
- Here’s a 1-page document that you can share with an interested educator or post online. The application to participate will take a teacher about 5-10 minutes to complete and is due on January 12, 2025.
CONNECT WITH OTHER AFS SCHOOL REPRESENTATIVES & RESOURCES
Monthly AFS School Representative Meeting - Join us one Monday evening per month to meet other volunteers who understand the value and importance of forging relationships with local schools. If you’ve never attended, please plan to attend the full hour. If you have attended before, you are welcome for the full hour, but you are also welcome to join in halfway through to hear about the current resources and the Q&A. Registration is required.
Starting in February 2025, these meetings will be held on the FIRST Monday of each month at 7:00pm Eastern time. If you have questions or topics that you’d like to see covered, please note those when you register.
RECENT & UPCOMING SCHOOL COMMUNICATIONS
To assist you in recognizing and communicating with your local schools, we want to make sure you are aware of both recent and upcoming communications that AFS schools are receiving.
- U.S. Department of State Medallion Member School digital medallions were emailed to school principals in late November. If you have a Sponsored Programs student being hosted in a local school and you want the Medallion Member School recognition to be sent to a different person on the staff, please reach out to Jill Woerner at jwoerner@afsusa.org with the student’s name, school name, and the name & email of the person to whom the email should be sent.
Did you know…?
…there are still some “AFS” clubs that still exist around the country? Do you have one locally? If your local school has an international club or an AFS club, please alert me or your School Partnerships staff member as we are planning for some fun recognitions and celebrations for them in the coming year! We don’t want to leave anyone out! Just email us with the school name, sponsor name/email, and the name of the club.
As always, thank you for all that you do! Here’s hoping that 2024 has been a good year for you and your family. Happy Holidays!
Jill Woerner, Sarah Radermacher, Evelyn Jackson, Leah Savary & Micki Barreto
Jill Woerner
AFS-USA Senior Director of Education & Outreach to Schools
jwoerner@afsusa.org
646-381-3309