International students in Lexington Public Schools

[andrei radulescu-banu]

CBS Local ran an investigative report on companies who facilitate homestay for foreign students wishing to quality for residency requirements allowing them to attend public high school in Lexington or other similar towns.

In this particular case, Eastern America Steward Education Corp placed a Craigs list ad looking for room for a foreign student. The company web site claimed they are in partnership with the Lexington schools.

As the CBS report points out, all foreign high school students are supposed to be on an visa program - typically F, but also J or M. This is certainly the case of students coming from overseas.  When granting a visa, the Department of Homeland Security will check an I-20 form filled by the destination school. Data from this form is entered in a SEVP database. In addition, there are health screening and vaccination requirements.

Colleges have an international student office helping students new to this country integrate. I happen to have some experience with this, having been an international student myself. The visa consulate required this I-20 form filled by the school's international student office to approve my J1 visa.

Transfer to a new school is possible in the visa program, but the student must submit a new I-20 form from the new school.

That explains how the system is supposed to work. In practice, the situation is more complicated. There's the fact that immigration reform is blocked in Congress and has become a political football; and in the meanwhile hundreds of thousands of children who are of school age need to go to school. Some families flee their country to run away from repression; others to seek economic opportunities. Some international students are bona-fide exchange students. And some students simply seek to come to a Massachusetts public school and pay big bucks to fly-by-night companies who can facilitate that.

Andrei Radulescu-Banu, Pct 8

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Andrei Radulescu-Banu

86 Cedar St, Lexington MA
617.216.8509 (m), 781.862.5854 (h)

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[Thomas, Ruth S]

website indicates there is a lexington office on bedford st.     are these tuition paying students from china?  do they have lex relatives?  do they arrive in u.s. unaccompanied?

http://www.bizapedia.com/ma/EASTERN-AMERICA-STEWARD-EDUCATION-CORP.html

rthomas, 4

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From: lex...@googlegroups.com [lex...@googlegroups.com] on behalf of andrei radulescu-banu [bitdr...@gmail.com]
Sent: Saturday, April 02, 2016 11:29 AM
To: Lex...@googlegroups.com
Subject: [LexTMMA] International students in Lexington Public Schools

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