Schools Limited Involvement

Dear German Teacher,

The letter below was designed to provide a “comfort level” to administrators regarding our travel exchange program. Due to the CODID-19 pandemic, we are unable to offer this “branch” of our program during 2020 – 2022 school years and we are only offering our NEW Virtual Friendship Connection at this time. However, for the 2023-2024 school year we will be offering BOTH our VFC and FC host/travel programs!

Our travel program is divided into two distinct phases:

1. The hosting of Germans in the American schools in the spring and allowing them to observe in the classroom for what amounts to 1-2 weeks. (This is the only phase that involves any American High School, just the granting of “visitation privileges.”)

2. If a U.S. participant, with approval from his/her parent, decides to return the visit in the summer to the German partner whom he/she hosted in the spring, that decision would not involve the American school nor the German teacher whatsoever.

School Year 2023-2024

Dear Administrator,

We are grateful for the cooperation and support our program receives from administrators and German teachers throughout the United States. In 2019 we had nearly 120 high school administrators gave permission for German exchange students on our program to visit their high schools in the spring. We look forward to building that number back up this school year! The three week stay usually occurs over spring break, so the German visitors are seldom in the school for more than 1 – 2 weeks. The German participants will be in the U.S. this year from March 19th – April 9th, 2024. The participating schools simply grant visitation privileges to the Germans in the spring; that is the extent of any school’s involvement in our program!

If parents decide to allow their children to visit Germany in the summer, when the U.S. school is out of session, that is strictly a matter between the participating families and The Friendship Connection, Inc. For legal reasons, some school administrators feel more comfortable when we emphasize this point in writing.

We are extremely proud of the fact that The Friendship Connection has been in existence since 1981 and has had nearly 34,100 participants from Germany and the United States during the last 41 years.

If any administrator has questions concerning our program, please call or email me.

Sincerely,
Krista Winzer-Lee, Coordinator
The Friendship Connection, Inc.