Photo by Ryan Brennecke / The BulletinLia León looks for a open teammate while playing a pickup game of Ultimate Frisbee at Skyline Complex on Tuesday. León, an exchange student from Columbia is experiencing America through her host family and making connections through sport.

When 17-year-old Lia León — a native from Bogotá, Colombia —looked for an exchange program to engage, she wanted to be in a place as different from home as possible.

Sitting in her host family’s kitchen, she watched, amused as Tom Nishikawa scrambled to make dinner for her, his three biological children and 8-year-old Ethiopian adopted son, Tomas.

Jade Nishikawa, 10, interrupted her with an important discovery: The Trader Joe’s cheese crackers had gone bad.

As an only child, Lia had never witnessed the chaos of a weeknight family dinner. That experience, along with others, have confirmed she’ll get what she wanted from the exchange program with her host family.

“You know,” Lia said, “I think I hit the jackpot.”

Lia’s pairing with the Nishikawa family shows Greenheart International’s student exchange program’s vetting process can find a good match. But factors ranging from an exchange student’s grasp of the English language to whether they can find social outlets in their host city greatly impact the lasting outcome.

Fewer than 20 exchange students attend Bend-La Pine Schools each year. The number is based on available space in the district’s high schools and each program’s resources to bring the students to the area.

Participating in an exchange program can be costly. The expenses host families take on — mostly day-to-day costs of an additional child — are rarely compensated. For foreign students, expenses include airfare, visa applications and health insurance while the student is in the U.S. All told, the costs are upwards of $12,000.

Financial help given to students varies by organization.

For example, The Rotary Club of Greater Bend will pay the school and athletic fees for Kaisa Katila, a student from Salo, Finland, it is hosting this academic year. The organization also is providing her a small stipend each month for incidentals.

Lia is on her own for all of those expenses. But the experience students are looking for often outweighs costs.

“The students coming have a huge desire to experience American culture and know the program’s rules before they set foot out of their country,” said Yvette Nishikawa, Lia’s host mom. “Connecting students to a family where the bulk of day-to-day expenses are covered seems a wonderful opportunity to me.”

The students and their host families went through a rigorous vetting process before matching up. That’s standard practice, according to Vic Martinez, who oversees Rotary Club of Greater Bend’s international exchange program.

“When we bring a student here, we’re pretty protective and treat them as though they’re our kid for the year,” Martinez said. “We’ve been entrusted with their kids, and we take that responsibility very seriously.”

The Nishikawas and the Roberts — Kaisa’s host family — passed background checks, submitted reference letters and photos of their homes, and took part in interviews with the organizations that run the exchange programs.

Lia and Kaisa went through a similar process, submitting items such as medical records and academic transcripts as part of their applications, which also included one-on-one interviews with corresponding organizations and personal reference checks.

“I don’t know if my parents would have let me go if I didn’t do it through Rotary,” Kaisa said. “I felt so protected knowing it was such a big process.”

Jen Roberts, her host mom, added, “Now that we’ve been through this part of the process, I’d be much more comfortable sending my own daughter.”

The exchange organizations and their local or regional officers are also responsible for mediating any disciplinary issues that arise. However, coordinators say the vetting process often prevents them.

During Martinez’s seven years in charge of Rotary exchanges, the only serious issue he’s come across involved a student from Eastern Europe who was taking beers out of a host family’s refrigerator.

“They aren’t allowed to drive or to drink,” Martinez said. “We also recommend no serious dating. We don’t want them hooking up with one person and becoming isolated from the exchange experience.”

Students can be sent home early for serious infractions such as skipping school or disrespecting their host families, as well as for any legal infraction.

The schools where exchange students expect to be enrolled also play a role in the acceptance process. Bend-La Pine Schools has strong relationships with a number of nonprofit organizations who facilitate exchange programs, according to deputy superintendent Jay Mathisen, including Greenheart International which placed Lia and the three Rotary clubs in the area.

Each school is allowed flexibility in how they approach exchange students. Bend-area high schools tend to get more requests than they can fill each year — anywhere from five to 20. Principals review the students’ applications to see who might be the best fit and must determine whether there’s space in the individual schools.

An exchange student’s handle on the English language is often a contributing factor for acceptance into a school as well as a program.

“I had experiences where we saw students come and that was such a significant struggle for them,” Mathisen said. He served as principal of La Pine High School before his current role with the district. “I think it made for a less than optimal experience for those students.”

Martinez recalled how a lack of English skills made communication very difficult for a Japanese student last year.

Kaisa and Lia both speak English fairly well. Reading comprehension can sometimes be a struggle for Lia.

While schools embrace the students, neither Mountain View High School nor Summit High School offers consistent outreach programs for exchange students.

“We’ve had various programs throughout the year. One year we had a girl with high interest in exchange students. Last year we assigned a bulk of them to a single counselor,” said Summit High School Principal Alice DeWittie. “This year, we have a small number so we aren’t doing much systematic outreach.”

This is where each exchange student placement program’s resources, if available, come into play. Rotary Club of Greater Bend has two volunteer counselors — one male, one female — available for exchange students in their program to use as an introduction to local activities and as a confidant if anything were to become a concern within their host family or at school.

Greenheart International’s program does not have similar counselors.

Kaisa’s Rotary contact is Heather Vihstadt, who is also High Desert Museum’s director of development.

“I think it’s essential to have that third-party connection in town,” Vihstadt said. “I know she adores the host family she’s with right now, but she can also express her concerns to an outside person.”

Kaisa joined the Mountain View cross-country team where the Roberts’ eldest daughter was already a member, which meant the Finland teen had school connections weeks before classes started. She was even asked to this weekend’s homecoming dance by a teammate. He unfurled a poster asking her out in Finnish after a race.

“I think that being part of a high school sports team has to be the best way for a foreign exchange student to experience American culture,” said head coach Mike Condon. “Our athletes accepted her with open arms, and she molded into the team with little effort.”

Contrast that with Lia’s experience at Summit, where she knew nobody except for Yvette Nishikawa, who works as an education consultant for the school district.

The concept of high school itself was foreign to Lia — she participated in an independent study program in Bogotá and received her high school diploma last year.

She found a way to, like Kaisa, break the ice through athletics. An avid ultimate Frisbee player in Colombia, she and Tom, her host father, joined a twice-weekly game at the Skyline Sports Complex where she’s made a few friends.

Lia also began making connections in the Summit Ultimate program at the behest of its coaching staff. It’s begun to make her feel more a part of the student body. This week marked the first time other students invited her out to lunch.

“Each day is a new experience,” Lia said. “I’m used to being independent, and now I’m living with six other people who are so different from each other. I say it’s all like a circus, but it’s all really nice.”

— Reporter: 541-382-1811, wrubin@bendbulletin.com