We recommend starting at least a year in advance so that you can take advantage of early enrollment incentives. Planning early offers several benefits to you, your students and their parents. You’ll be able to plan the trip into your curriculum. You’ll also have more time to recruit your students – earning you increased travel rewards. Parents will also appreciate the additional time to budget and save for the program.

NETC takes great care in the design of our programs and compares them to other organizations’ to make sure that, without question, ours set the highest standard for quality and excellence. When you choose to travel with NETC, you will be the teacher your students remember, for all the right reasons.

You should begin by browsing our over 100 travel programs>>>. If you’re a foreign language teacher, your choice of destination may be obvious. Otherwise, you should consider which countries, cities, sights and activities best fit your educational needs. Choosing a program that corresponds best with your curriculum can be helpful for gaining school board approval. Also consider which destinations will attract the most interest with your students. Some additional questions you may ask yourself when selecting your itinerary are: Would you like to offer your students complete immersion in a single country or a more cross-cultural experience? How long do you want the trip to last? What pace do you want to set – two nights generally means one day in a given city. What time of year do you want to travel? What time of year is the best to visit the area? If you’re proposing itineraries to your students ahead of time, try to limit the itineraries you present to two, to make the decision easier for all.

You should hold an initial student meeting to see if there is enough interest to make the program viable - you can request NETC Posters>>> to publicize the meeting. Give attendees copies of prospective itineraries, and the Student Enrollment Guide>>>, to take home. Include a letter to parents from you explaining why your planning the tour, what is involved, as well as something about you've chosen NETC- suggest that the parents visit the NETC site to discover what makes NETC unique. There should be a cut-off slip for the parents to fill out and return, indicating whether they will attend a parent meeting. At a parent meeting, you can go into much more detail about each day of the trip, the enrollment timetable and other specifics about your itinerary.

This really depends on the school. You should discuss your plans with the principal prior to making any public announcements. If the school sponsors the program, it should be acceptable to advertise, recruit and hold meetings at school. If not, don’t worry, as more than half of our groups are not school sponsored. Non-sponsored group leaders hold meetings in various off-campus locations, including local libraries, community centers, churches, Group Leader’s home or a student’s home. This is not a problem, as you are covered by our $10 million professional liability protection. For more information on working with school boards, please contact your Tour Consultant.

There is still much to be done after the student meeting, and NETC can help you every step of the way. At this time, your main focus should be enrolling students. Call all students who attended the meeting individually to remind them of the deadline to return signed applications, and answer any questions that they may still have. Mention the trip in class again and suggest that students invite friends from other classes to speak with you about the trip. By this time, you should have already requested and received your Teacher Account with enabled Group Space pages, which you can customize and share (by providing a group username & password) with prospective students and parents - we highly recommend that you use this effective tool to support promotion and recruitment.

Set a date to collect applications and deposits, and review each application to make sure it is filled out completely and signed by a parent or guardian before sending to NETC. All checks must be payable to NETC with deposit (and insurance payment if applicable). Please note, you are only responsible for collecting the initial deposits from your participants. Subsequent payments will be made directly to NETC. All Student Applications and checks should be sent to NETC.

NETC will send each enrolled student an Acceptance Certificate that indicates the amount and due date of the next payment. You don’t need to worry about collecting any further money from the group, as NETC will send statements to each participant individually.

Once you’ve enrolled your group, you’ll begin working with NETC’s specialized service department specifically for teachers, called Program Management. Your Program Manager specializes in all pre-departure details such as itinerary updates, flight and hotel arrangements, Tour Director and student account information. They serve as an invaluable resource for questions regarding your trip.

Your NETC Tour Director is with the group from the time you arrive at the airport in your destination until your departure back home. Not only will your Tour Director provide and present the educational content of the tour, but they’re also trained to respond to emergency situations. NETC has 24-hour emergency coverage in the country of your destination and in the US, as well as a fully trained crisis response team. Our insurance company, ACE provides access to worldwide medical assistance. To learn more>>>