The Foreign Service Journal, June 2017

84 JUNE 2017 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL EDUCATION SUPPLEMENT By the time kids have entered grade school or junior high, many parents realize that the local international school simply has no U.S. history class or resources. What can parents do to supplement the school’s curriculum? ALLOWANCES: Expenses for a supplemental U.S. history class can be reimbursed in addition to the autho- rized “at post” education allowance. For example, if a parent needs to buy a U.S. history textbook and hire a private tutor to teach U.S. history because that subject is not provided at their child’s school, the cost of the textbook and the tutor may be reimbursable as supplementary instruc- tion. See DSSR 276.9 for a complete list of circumstances in which supplementary instruction may be reimbursed. Also note that reimbursement for supplementary instruction is currently limited to $4,100 per year. FLO: Are there any recent updates to the educational travel allowance? ALLOWANCES: Up to now, we have been talking about allowances for primary and secondary school educa- tion under DSSR 270. When talking about the educational travel ben- efit under DSSR 280, we are switching gears to talk about the one annual round trip of transportation between the post and school a child is attending full-time, either at the secondary or post- secondary level. Rather than the previous restriction to the United States, the school may be any- where in the world now. Also, the annual round tripmay originate from either the school or the employee’s foreign post of assignment. Parents sometimes get confused The annual round trip may originate from either the school or the employee’s foreign post of assignment. Continued on page 96