• Study Abroad Opportunities

     

    Please contact our Study Abroad Coordinator, Ms. Elizabeth Chapman, for more information. She can be reached at echapman@houstonisd.org.

  • Bellaire High School students have the opportunity to study abroad for as little as a week and as long as a year on every continent except for Antarctica! Check out our available programs below, from shortest to longest:

    Programs About a Week in Length:

    EF Tours is Houston ISD's travel partner for student study tours, and Bellaire High School students have traveled with that organization since 2000. (Check out the exciting initiative that other HISD schools are completing with EF!) Past destinations include the Galapagos, Costa Rica, Iceland, Ireland, Scotland, England, Portugal, Spain, France, Switzerland, Italy, Greece, and Japan.

    Upcoming Spring Break trips include Spain in 2024, South Korea in 2025, and Greece in 2026 (contact Ms. Chapman at echapman@houstonisd.org). Upcoming Summer trips include Health Sciences in Great Britain and France in 2025 (contact Ms. Decerbo at adecerbo@houstonisd.org) as well as an exciting surprise destination with a theatre focus (contact Ms. Boffone at kayla.boffone@houstonisd.org).

     

    Impact India, the Puranik Foundation's service-focused program with their nonprofit school in Pune, India, allows students to work with the local community there on educational initiatives. Impact India is also an official HISD partner organization.

     

    The Junior Achiever Scholarship, through the British-American Foundation of Texas, is a need-based program for a student to visit England. The program will not be running in 2024, but please check back in the future!

     

     

    Programs About a Month in Length:

    The Council for International Educational Exchange has recognized Bellaire High School as a partner Global Navigator School. They offer programs with significant scholarship support for students to spend three to four weeks of the summer in a global destination; over the past decade, Bellaire students have participated in their programs to Chile, Argentina, Mexico, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Portugal, Spain, France, England, Italy, Germany, Botswana, South Africa, India, Thailand, China, South Korea, Japan, and Australia. Check out their programs available for this summer, and see Ms. Chapman in room 2712 for support in completing your application for a scholarship!

     

    The Rotary Youth Exchange Short Term Program is a reciprocal exchange over the summer; a student joins a host family in another country from three to four weeks, and then welcomes that student back to their home in Houston for the same period of time.

     

    Amigos de las Americas is a 60-year-old Houston-based organization with a strong service focus that sends students to local communities in Latin America. Current destinations include Costa Rica, Panama, and Ecuador, and range in length from two to nine weeks over the summer. Need-based financial support is available.

     

    The National Security Language Initiative for Youth (NSLI-Y) provides students with full merit-based scholarships to spend the summer (six to seven weeks) studying another language -- Arabic, Mandarin, Hindi, Indonesian, Korean, Persian, Russian, or Turkish -- in a host country where it is spoken locally (locations vary according to the year).

     

    Programs About a Year in Length:

     

    Rotary International also offers students the opportunity to spend a full academic year abroad in a wide range of countries. The program is administered by local Houston-area Rotary Clubs. Students often choose to participate in this program as a gap year, between graduation from Bellaire High School and the beginning of their college experience. (Bellaire currently has a student in Denmark on this program right now!)

     

    The National Security Language Initiative for Youth (NSLI-Y) also provides students with full merit-based scholarships to spend an entire school year studying another language -- Arabic, Mandarin, Hindi, Indonesian, Korean, Persian, Russian, or Turkish -- in a host country where it is spoken locally (locations vary according to the year).  

     

    The Congress-Bundestag Youth Exchange is a full, merit-based scholarship for students to spend the entire school year with a host family in Germany.

    Bellaire also often welcomes exchange students from other countries into our community; please contact Ms. Chapman at echapman@houstonisd.org if you would be interested in hosting an exchange student.

    A more detailed overview of our study abroad program's history and organization is available here.