Five students from Shanghai will stay with families of upper school students Feb. 1-13.

This exchange has occurred at this same time for the past three years and will again be organized by the World Leading School Association, an organization that Harvard-Westlake is a founding member of. This year the international students will come from the High School affiliated with Fudan University.

“We have a group of families that has volunteered to host these kids while they’re here,” director of Kutler Center and Summer Programs Jim Patterson said. “They’ll live with their family, come to school with their host sibling and then be here at school most of the day. They also do some other things off-site and then go home with the student at night.”

The exchange students will stay with families of Chinese students. This summer there will be homestay options in China for Harvard-Westlake students participating in an internship program there.

“Part of the way that these homestay experiences work is that we provide homestays here when students come here, so that when our students go there, they’ll provide homestays as well,” Patterson said.

In the past, the school has hosted students from Japan and Russia. This year is one of the smallest groups coming from Shanghai as last year there were eight.

“Whenever you have an opportunity to interact with somebody who grew up in a culture different from your own or a place different from your own, I think it can be an incredible learning experience and incredibly enriching,” Patterson said.