5 Questions | What Really Impresses a High School Teacher About CIEE BridgeUSA

Meet Kate Mann, a CIEE BridgeUSA local coordinator based in Irving, Texas. She’s been supporting exchange students and host families for three years while also working as a high school teacher. 

CIEE: How did you get involved with CIEE? 

Mann: I got a recruitment email sent to local high school social studies teachers and looked into the organization. 

I was really impressed with all the opportunities that it offered and the ways that this process enriches the communities that these exchange students come to. 

CIEE: How long have you been a local coordinator and what keeps you excited about supporting students and host families? 

Mann: I've been a coordinator for three years, and I stay really excited about this job because I see all the ways it benefits people. I get to learn and grow from all the exchange students, host families, high schools, and communities I get to interact with. 

I see the way that these exchange students grow and develop over the course of their time here. I see the way that they enrich their high school, their community, the wonderful experiences they get to have with their host families, and how those lives are changed forever. 

I feel like I'm doing something that makes a difference – not just for myself, but for the people whose lives these exchange students touch. 

CIEE: Can you share a specific experience working with CIEE? 

Mann: A specific experience that sticks out to me as something really special was I had a student go to a small town in Texas, and they were the only exchange student there. 

The entire community rallied around that student. They were excited for them to be there and to learn about that student's culture. 

It added a level of diversity that just really wasn't seen in that town and an experience for the community to learn about another culture that they wouldn't have been exposed to otherwise. 

CIEE: Is there anything unique about your background or profession or lifestyle that helps you connect with the families and students? 

Mann: I am a high school teacher. I work with teenagers day in and day out in both of my careers. That gives me a bit of a special outlook on how to interact with these exchange students, how to give them support and make them feel heard, understood, and valued. 

And that's the thing that's really important to me as a local coordinator, that my exchange students feel that they have my unconditional support and that they are respected as individuals. 

CIEE: Why do you choose to work with CIEE? What makes it special? 

Mann: I work with CIEE because I've just been really impressed with the amount of support that CIEE provides both to, you know, to me as a local coordinator, to our host families, to our exchange students. 

We have program support specialists, an insurance team, and regional placement managers that helped me. We have this giant team of people who are all invested in making sure that the exchange students and host families have the best experience possible. 

Interested in becoming an LC? Contact CIEE to learn more about becoming a local coordinator.