Toledo City Council Honors Class of American Cultural Exchange Service High School Foreign Exchange Students

For many years the Toledo area has been host each year to a couple dozen high school foreign exchange students who spend up to a year of their high school experience living with host families and attending local high schools throughout the greater Toledo area.

Each year, these very bright and highly motivated students are competitively selected by the Department of State to participate in an emersion American culture, government and history learning experience in communities all across the United States.

Commonly known as the ACES students because the program is coordinated on behalf of the State Department by a non-profit organization called the American Cultural Exchange Service (ACES), at the end of their program year are presented a certificate congratulating them on the successful completion of the program by the City Council.

This past year however, the Council, spearheaded by Councilwoman Cerssandra McPherson, a former educator, took a different tact and hosted several students from the group for one day every other week so they could get an inside view of the operations and processes of a local elected legislative body.

The 2022 – 2023 class included students from German, Ghana, Indonesia, Italy, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Lithuania, Moldova, Mozambique, Philippines, Senegal, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Spain, Thailand, and Ukraine.

The experience proved extraordinarily enriching for both the Council members and staff as well as for the students. Everyone of the students enthusiastically expressed their appreciation for the learning experience. Many of these students were not even familiar with the operation of their own local governments. One student decided to change her career path to pursue a career in public service. The experience was so rewarding that it would be exciting to expand the opportunity to select American high school student who may have a passion for possible future public service. For the upcoming year it is hoped the students will end their experience participating in a mock council meeting.

Councilwoman McPherson stated, “It was an honor to chaperone these students on their class trip to Niagara Falls and lean from them the different languages that they spoke. These students have changed my life forever.”