A number of years in the past, when my husband was nonetheless in the military, we went to a semi-regular father or mother and employees assembly at our youngsters’ college.
It was the starting of the college yr, simply after Blue Star Welcome Week, an annual occasion launched by the nonprofit Blue Star Families to assist the households of the greater than 600,000 lively responsibility and transitioning veteran households that settle into a brand new group every year.
I’m on the board of Blue Star Families and I had been speaking to navy spouses about what makes them really feel welcome in a brand new place and lots of pointed to gestures by others in the group involving their children: suggestions for pediatricians, an invite to a playdate, a suggestion to be an emergency contact.
With these households on my thoughts, I made a decision to see if their youngsters is perhaps in class with mine, feeling sheepish it hadn’t occurred to me to take action earlier than.
“Are there any military families in the school?” I requested at the assembly. “It would be good to reach out and see if they need anything.”
“No, there are no military families in the school,” a faculty official instructed us.
My husband and I checked out one another.
“Well, there’s at least one,” I laughed.
The college official requested if we had checked the field to determine our children as belonging to a navy household at registration and my husband confirmed he had. She instantly made a word to examine if there have been some other navy households at the college who have been flying below the radar as we have been, which we enormously appreciated.
Military households mix into our cities and cities. Seventy p.c of them dwell off base in our neighborhoods the place communities are not at all times outfitted to handle their transitions.
Military households typically transfer each two to 3 years, a tempo so disruptive to their high quality of life that the Pentagon is seeking to prolong assignments to cut back the tempo of navy strikes, often called everlasting adjustments of station.
Moving could be robust on youngsters, more durable in the event that they run into purple tape as they transition schools between states, which occurs quite a bit.
That’s why there’s an settlement between all 50 states and Washington, DC known as the Military Interstate Children’s Compact Commission (also referred to as MIC 3). The compact is meant to ease the shifting pains of navy transitions.
But Kaitlyn Chin and three different current graduates of Sumner High School in Hillsborough County, Florida discovered, regardless of the MIC 3 compact, that navy children have been falling through the cracks in their state. High college credit from schools in different states weren’t transferring to their new Florida college. Some have been unable to enroll in time for the college yr, which meant they have been sometimes ignored of sports activities and golf equipment.
“Students [were] falling behind, having their GPAs lowered, and some of them were not even able to graduate on time,” Kaitlyn explains.
“This takes a very emotional toll and mental toll on these students as well as their families, because their parents are trying to fight for them as well as fighting for our country at the same time.”
Kaitlyn’s father is a veteran, however the different college students who took curiosity in the downside dealing with navy households had no connection to the armed forces, like Grace Siderio.
“Here I am, enjoying my senior year, getting to go to all my events and do ‘Senior Sunrise’ and ‘Senior Skip Day,’” Grace says, “and other students who have families who are serving in the military, protecting our country, they can’t do some of these events because they’re being held back.”
Kaitlyn and her classmates first grew to become conscious of the downside from a trainer final yr when Hillsborough County School District partnered with iCivics, the nonprofit funded by the late Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor and Blue Star Families, to transient educators on learn how to higher assist navy youngsters in schools.
The highschool college students surveyed 100 educators throughout Florida. The state is dwelling to the fourth largest inhabitants of navy relations in the nation and but they discovered not one educator they surveyed had heard of the MIC 3 compact.
The teenagers got down to change that, drafting a legislation requiring coaching for educators on the settlement and learn how to higher assist navy households in schools, and lobbying legislators to assist it.
On May 30, 2025, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed their invoice into legislation.
After their success, the teenagers visited close by MacDill Air Base to speak with households who might profit from the legislation. They’re optimistic as they wait to see the results of the legislation.
“The [staff] who are transferring [students in military families] are going to be more prepared and better trained for how to facilitate their transfers and it’s going to make the whole process run a lot smoother, which it already should have been,” says Grace.
These Florida teenagers are now settling into their faculty freshman yr, proud that navy children could also be higher capable of settle into their school rooms round the state due to the legislation they helped to move.
They hope their college mission could be a mannequin for different younger individuals of learn how to serve Americans who are serving their nation in the navy.
“Why are we not taking the same initiative to be selfless and to put forward our best efforts to make sure that their transitions are smoother when they’re already doing so much for us?” says Kaitlyn.