Children of service members who die on active duty will be allowed to continue to attend stateside Defense Department schools indefinitely, under a policy change by defense school officials.
The change, announced May 14, is effective immediately, and applies to the Domestic Dependent Elementary and Secondary Schools. DDESS operates 64 schools on 17 installations in the U.S. and its territories and possessions.
The new policy allows a child to continue in DDESS schools without limitation, regardless of physical residence or upcoming school transition points. For example, a child may transition to a DDESS middle school or high school.
For continued enrollment, the child’s parent or guardian must make a one-time request to the school The student’s family must assume responsibility for transportation. Yearly registration is required, and the student must meet other requirements for continued enrollment.
A separate policy is in place for overseas Department of Defense Dependents Schools that allows children of deceased active-duty members and Defense Department civilians to enroll in DoDDS schools on a space-available, tuition-free basis.
At a summit last fall for families of fallen, wounded and ill service members, the widow of a soldier who died in Iraq in 2006 asked Defense Secretary Robert Gates to make this change. The widow, living near Fort Campbell, Ky., said her children needed the continuity after their father died.
After moving off base, she said she had to seek waivers for her children each year, and “there’s nothing promising me I won’t have to beg ... next year,” she said.
The previous policy allowed currently enrolled DDESS students who had a parent die on active duty to continue in those schools until they reached a normal transition point to another school level, such as from middle school to high school.
“It gives me a great deal of peace to know that we are taking care of the education of the families of our fallen service members for as long as they need our assistance,” Shirley Miles, director of the Department of Defense Education Activity, said in announcing the policy change. “It’s the right thing to do.”
posted by LoveMyTanker @ 7:30 AM
1 Comments:
Part of me thinks this is a generous thing, a means of genuinely thanking servicemen who died doing their duty by giving their children a proper education. Another part of me thinks this is some sort of outcrop of their guilt at getting them killed needlessly (a very arguable thing) in the first place.
Post a Comment
<< Home