thedrifter
09-27-05, 09:18 PM
October 03, 2005
Wary parents hold kids out of school
Proposed cuts to overseas force level may be behind DoD enrollment drop
By Karen Jowers
Times staff writer
Defense Department schools may be seeing the first signs of parents’ reactions to the proposed drawdown overseas — in the form of a drop in enrollment.
Firm numbers will not be available before Sept. 30, but preliminary projections indicate worldwide enrollment may be down by 3,000 to 4,000 students, said Joseph Tafoya, director of the Department of Defense Education Activity.
That is a decrease of about 3 percent to 4 percent over this time last year, when enrollment was about 97,000.
DoDEA normally hires about 700 new teachers, but this year, the number has been about 400, Tafoya said. Officials have had no problem filling spots in any subject areas or grade levels.
“Obviously, some families are already making decisions about where they are going to be,” Tafoya said in a Sept. 13 interview. “If they have a year to go and the [parent] is going to be redeployed, [the remaining family members] may come back to the States earlier.”
Also, he said, some families who recently have received orders for overseas assignments are deciding not to move with the service member, knowing that in a year or year and a half they may return to the United States.
In the continental United States, where there are military-operated schools in some places for those who live on base, unease has sprouted because of pending decisions on the fate of many of those schools.
A study by three education experts, paid for by the Pentagon, suggested closing or transferring to local districts 48 of the military’s 58 dependents’ schools at 10 of 14 stateside military bases. But those decisions are pending and will not be made until final base realignment and closing decisions are made later this year, officials said.
School officials are taking a hiatus on new initiatives this school year in an effort to ensure teachers and staff have a firm foundation in new math and science programs launched in the last two years.
“We’ve been loading people up so much, we think it’s time to ease back on the pedal a little bit,” Tafoya said.
The turmoil in communities because of the deployment tempo and upcoming drawdown is a minor factor in that decision, he said.
“I think we would be doing this even if there wasn’t a drawdown,” Tafoya said. “It’s wise in certain subject areas [to] do a two- to three-year implementation model rather than one year. It just makes sense.” Recent education research backs that up, he noted.
Military family advocates agree. “DoDEA has been implementing many new initiatives and dealing with a lot of turmoil due to deployments and the upcoming rebasing,” said Joyce Raezer, director of government relations for the National Military Family Association.
“Any school system dealing with so many issues and implementing a series of new initiatives probably needs to let its staff have some time to gain more experience with the new programs, go to the next level of professional development … and focus on their response to the issues causing so much turmoil in their community,” she said.
Officials are evaluating current programs for the middle grades, four, five and six.
As they have done with the high school grades and special education, they will determine what programs to link with those grade levels, regardless of the school. Whether a child is in sixth grade in a K-6 school, a middle school or intermediate school, he should receive the same education in any Defense Department school, Tafoya said.
The system has spent a lot of money on younger reader initiatives in the elementary schools, he said. “But when we look at grades four, five and six, they’ve kind of been … forgotten.”
As officials plan for these middle grades, some high school foreign language teachers as well as math and science teachers who might lose their jobs at the high school level could augment some programs in the lower grades.
“We will focus on how to give the best education,” Tafoya said. “Obviously, this is not a panacea for our drawdown, because our drawdown will be far larger than what this is. But this is our opportunity to say, ‘What do we really need to be the best?’”
The ongoing studies are aimed at determining needs, possibly including more staffing, for example.
Tafoya said school officials have done preliminary planning for the upcoming overseas rebasing, but cannot make final plans until the military makes decisions about how many troops will be where.
Raezer said some parents are concerned that younger teachers will be the ones to lose jobs, but Tafoya said that’s not necessarily the case.
“If I were a [civilian] school district, I would cut by the least seniority,” he said, but that’s not the way Defense Department schools do it because of other features in federal law and negotiated agreements.
“It won’t necessarily be all the young teachers because of that,” Tafoya said. “It’s not a strict seniority thing.”
Ellie
Wary parents hold kids out of school
Proposed cuts to overseas force level may be behind DoD enrollment drop
By Karen Jowers
Times staff writer
Defense Department schools may be seeing the first signs of parents’ reactions to the proposed drawdown overseas — in the form of a drop in enrollment.
Firm numbers will not be available before Sept. 30, but preliminary projections indicate worldwide enrollment may be down by 3,000 to 4,000 students, said Joseph Tafoya, director of the Department of Defense Education Activity.
That is a decrease of about 3 percent to 4 percent over this time last year, when enrollment was about 97,000.
DoDEA normally hires about 700 new teachers, but this year, the number has been about 400, Tafoya said. Officials have had no problem filling spots in any subject areas or grade levels.
“Obviously, some families are already making decisions about where they are going to be,” Tafoya said in a Sept. 13 interview. “If they have a year to go and the [parent] is going to be redeployed, [the remaining family members] may come back to the States earlier.”
Also, he said, some families who recently have received orders for overseas assignments are deciding not to move with the service member, knowing that in a year or year and a half they may return to the United States.
In the continental United States, where there are military-operated schools in some places for those who live on base, unease has sprouted because of pending decisions on the fate of many of those schools.
A study by three education experts, paid for by the Pentagon, suggested closing or transferring to local districts 48 of the military’s 58 dependents’ schools at 10 of 14 stateside military bases. But those decisions are pending and will not be made until final base realignment and closing decisions are made later this year, officials said.
School officials are taking a hiatus on new initiatives this school year in an effort to ensure teachers and staff have a firm foundation in new math and science programs launched in the last two years.
“We’ve been loading people up so much, we think it’s time to ease back on the pedal a little bit,” Tafoya said.
The turmoil in communities because of the deployment tempo and upcoming drawdown is a minor factor in that decision, he said.
“I think we would be doing this even if there wasn’t a drawdown,” Tafoya said. “It’s wise in certain subject areas [to] do a two- to three-year implementation model rather than one year. It just makes sense.” Recent education research backs that up, he noted.
Military family advocates agree. “DoDEA has been implementing many new initiatives and dealing with a lot of turmoil due to deployments and the upcoming rebasing,” said Joyce Raezer, director of government relations for the National Military Family Association.
“Any school system dealing with so many issues and implementing a series of new initiatives probably needs to let its staff have some time to gain more experience with the new programs, go to the next level of professional development … and focus on their response to the issues causing so much turmoil in their community,” she said.
Officials are evaluating current programs for the middle grades, four, five and six.
As they have done with the high school grades and special education, they will determine what programs to link with those grade levels, regardless of the school. Whether a child is in sixth grade in a K-6 school, a middle school or intermediate school, he should receive the same education in any Defense Department school, Tafoya said.
The system has spent a lot of money on younger reader initiatives in the elementary schools, he said. “But when we look at grades four, five and six, they’ve kind of been … forgotten.”
As officials plan for these middle grades, some high school foreign language teachers as well as math and science teachers who might lose their jobs at the high school level could augment some programs in the lower grades.
“We will focus on how to give the best education,” Tafoya said. “Obviously, this is not a panacea for our drawdown, because our drawdown will be far larger than what this is. But this is our opportunity to say, ‘What do we really need to be the best?’”
The ongoing studies are aimed at determining needs, possibly including more staffing, for example.
Tafoya said school officials have done preliminary planning for the upcoming overseas rebasing, but cannot make final plans until the military makes decisions about how many troops will be where.
Raezer said some parents are concerned that younger teachers will be the ones to lose jobs, but Tafoya said that’s not necessarily the case.
“If I were a [civilian] school district, I would cut by the least seniority,” he said, but that’s not the way Defense Department schools do it because of other features in federal law and negotiated agreements.
“It won’t necessarily be all the young teachers because of that,” Tafoya said. “It’s not a strict seniority thing.”
Ellie