Schools Urged to Ease Way for Kids of Military

By Lori Nitschke

WASHINGTON — Megan Barron moved nine times during her school years, following her father from Army post to Army post.

By high school, the honors student with flowing brown hair had a sure-fire plan to make friends — or at least lunchtime acquaintances.

Even though she hated running and wasn’t good at sports, she always joined the one team always willing to take her — the cross- country squad.

“It meant I had somebody to sit with at lunch,” Barron said.

Now a junior at the College of William and Mary in Virginia, she spoke Monday at a Capitol Hill conference on encouraging schools to ease the way for the oft-moved children of military personnel.

With base realignments and overseas deployments keeping military personnel on the move, educators and military families are redoubling efforts to make school transfers more seamless.

The Defense Department is setting up Internet sites and publishing materials to help military families assess school requirements near new postings. Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore is responding to several reports on the challenges faced by the more than 1 million children of military personnel.

The first report, released at Monday’s conference, highlighted the need for children to feel connected to their school. It encouraged state and local officials to be more flexible when dealing with new students.

Among recommendations are that schools not hold up graduation for high school seniors simply because their previous school district had differing class requirements.

John Deegan, superintendent of the Bellevue school district in Nebraska, said many of the recommendations have long been standard practice in his district, where 50 percent of the 9,300 students have parents at Offutt Air Force Base.

Deegan, who spoke at the conference, said he has seen many parents come to Bellevue after being at less sensitive schools and those parents worry as they move to districts that aren’t willing to remove barriers.

Common impediments include requiring a child to repeat a class that was previously passed because some of the curriculum was different, preventing children from trying out for sports teams because they arrived too late in the school year or keeping a high- performing child from transferring National Honor Society membership because of different rules.

Dr. Robert Blum, who wrote the Johns Hopkins report, said such problems can keep children from feeling part of a school. Blum said students who are less connected to their schools are more likely to use drugs and alcohol, to become pregnant or to attempt suicide.

With U.S. society increasingly mobile, efforts to ease transitions for incoming students would be helpful beyond military families, Blum said. The issue has been highlighted by the challenges faced by Hurricane Katrina victims.

Deegan said school districts that don’t have large numbers of military students often are the least flexible. Ironically, he said, one of the hardest states for military families to move to is Virginia, home to the Pentagon and various high-level Defense Department operations.

Barron said she hoped some of the efforts would help.

“Any military child will tell you this lifestyle is not easy,” she said. “I would want it to be made a little easier.”