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Some School Districts Are Restricting Recruiters

Posted on: Tuesday, 18 October 2005, 09:01 CDT

By Jeff Commings, ARIZONA DAILY STAR

Some school districts in Tucson have, or are establishing, policies that restrict military recruiters to one visit a month in specified areas of schools.

The Tucson Unified School District was the first in the area to create a policy concerning access to campuses by recruiters. The Sunnyside Unified School District is expected to follow with a similar policy this week.

The number of complaints from parents and students at TUSD about military recruiters has fallen since the district created guidelines in February that dictated what recruiters visiting campuses are allowed to do, said Ross Sheard, principal supervisor at TUSD.

The conditions also apply to college and job recruiters who visit high-school campuses.

Recruiters are also limited to designated areas at a school and cannot roam the campus.

The district also created an "Opt Out" form for parents to sign if they don't wish to have their children's information released to the military.

"There were some people that weren't being as respectful of kids' time," Sheard said. "We needed to come up with a standard."

The Sunnyside district will consider a policy modeled on TUSD's guidelines at Tuesday's board meeting, said district spokeswoman Monique Soria.

The board offered only small changes to a policy proposed last month, and most members were pleased with it, she said.

A federal law requires military recruiters to have access to students' names, phone numbers and addresses, and equal access to schools given to colleges and universities. And any school that receives federal funds must allow some campus access for recruiters.

Sheard said TUSD was made aware of the problem of the frequency of military recruiting visits during a public call to the audience at a board meeting. Students and parents also spoke out to the Sunnyside board last month.

"I see the military at almost every after-school activity," said Sunnyside High School senior Adam Dean.

Though the war in Iraq is making recruiting a prevalent topic, Ray Siqueiros, Sunnyside High School social studies teacher, said he believes recruiters have always targeted low-income working-class students.

"When Reagan was president, the military was targeting Latino schools that historically have issues with dropout rates to go fight & in Central America," said Siqueiros, who remembers being recruited then.

"Meanwhile, our kids are suffering at home with unequal educational opportunities.

"But don't get me wrong," he said. "This is an issue that affects all working-class youth, whether brown, black or white."

Military recruiters don't seem to be a problem in Amphitheater Public Schools, where only one letter of complaint has been sent to district administrators in two years, said Todd Jaeger, the district's legal counsel.

The only action Amphitheater has taken, he said, is to create a policy dealing with the federal provision of providing student information if parents allow it.

If you go

* Sunnyside Unified School

District meets at 6:30 p.m.

Tuesday at the district's offices, 2238 E. Ginter Road.

* Contact reporter Jeff Commings at 573-4191 or at jcommings@azstarnet.com.

Source: Arizona Daily Star

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