• Recent incidents of placement of exchange students with unsuitable host families have brought the Department, Congress, the American public, and members of the exchange community together in an initiative to upgrade this program to ensure a safe and positive exchange experience for every foreign student invited to participate in this exchange program. To achieve this goal, the Department has engaged in a series of actions and outreach to focus the Secondary School Student exchange industry on best practices and continued improvement in selection and monitoring of host families and students.
 • The proposed changes focus on six areas: 1) the utilization of a standard application form for all host family applications; 2) the requirement for photographs of all host family homes (to include bedrooms, living areas, kitchen, outside of house and grounds) as part of the host family application process; 3) whether the host family application references should include references from family members or local coordinators, and whether one reference should be from the school in which the student is enrolled; 4) whether fingerprint-based criminal background checks should be required of all adult host family members and sponsor officers, employees, representatives, agents and volunteers who come, or may come, into direct contact with the students, and whether guidelines regarding the interpretation of criminal background checks are needed; 5) the establishment of baseline financial resources for potential host families, and 6) the establishment of limitations on the composition of potential host families. This proposed rule will be published in the federal register tomorrow with 60-day comment period. For details of the proposed changes, please read the proposal.