The Department of Defense Education Activity (DoDEA) manages two school systems, namely the Domestic Dependent Elementary and Secondary Schools (DDESS) and the DoD Dependents Schools (DoDDS) (DoDEA, 2016). DDESS serves qualified dependents within the United States in areas where the DoD runs schools. On the other hand, the DoDDs serve qualified dependents outside the United States, including DoDDS-Europe and DoDDS-Pacific. DoDEA schools’ chain of command is closely related to that used by the military personnel. In the context of the DoDEA schools, each geographic region is headed by a director, an area supervisor or director, and a district superintendent, flowing in that order (DoDEA, 2016). The school principal and teachers follow respectively.
Maxwell Elementary Middle School, which operates under the DoDEA, provides an example of how the correct chain of command is applied in addressing issues at the school. Typical classroom problems are first reported to the teacher. In case the problems are beyond the teacher, the teacher reports to the principal. If the problems cannot be addressed at the school level, they are referred to the District Superintendent, who then reports to the area director. In case the area director lacks a solution the problem, he or she reports to the DoDEA director, who is in the highest position in the chain of command for final decisions (Maxwell Elementary Middle School, 2017).
The chain of command is as follows;
Benefits and Challenges for Learners in DoDEA Schools
According to Esqueda, Astor, and De Pedro (2012), the key challenges that learners in DoDEA schools face emanate from their parent's engagement in military service. Military children experience psychological stressors as a result of parental war trauma, disability, deployments, illness, and death. The stressors often affect the children’s academic, socio-emotional, and psychological outcomes negatively. Between 2005 and 2006, the number of behavioral disorders, mental and behavioral health visits, as well as stress disorders among the military children rose by 11%, 19%, and 18% whenever a parent was deployed (Esqueda, Astor " De Pedro, 2012). The study also established that parental deployments were also positively linked with increased cases of juvenile depression among the military children. Moreover, the deployments contribute to poor academic performance among the military children, mainly due to higher stress and depression levels. Another key challenge that military children encounter involves multiple school transitions. Children are often forced to move with their parents to their new areas of assignment, indicating that they are likely to attend several schools before they can complete their learning. The frequent change of schools has a negative impact on their academic performance since they may take a considerable amount of time before they can effectively adjust to the new school environments.
These unique challenges that military children face make civilian public schools unsuitable for military children since the personnel at the schools lack the required skills, knowledge, and experience to effectively manage issues of parental deployment that affect children as well as issues of multiple school transitions (Esposito-Smythers et al., 2011). However, learners attending DoDEA schools access several benefits including an extensive support network comprising of military personnel and families, which enables them to overcome their unique challenges. The military children interact with other children who are also facing similar challenges, making it easy for them to identify with each other’s problems and overcoming such problems as depression and stress emanating from parental deployment, death, or injuries among other factors. Further, Card et al. (2011) maintain that students attending the schools benefit from experiential advantages that are unavailable to children attending civilian schools. Such experiences range from living in different environments as they often shift to their parents’ new workplaces to experiences pertaining to loss of parents and living with disabled parents among others.
The exposure to the experiences enables them to become more open-minded compared to their civilian counterparts. Moreover, the DoDEA school environment gives the learners an opportunity to interact with other military families, which help them to develop specific coping strategies due to their extensive interaction with the military lifestyle. Additionally, attending the DoDEA schools helps learners to overcome the challenges of multiple school transitions, since all the schools share a similar culture that helps learners to identify with the school environment and other learners quickly. The learners are less likely to feel like strangers in the schools since they already understand that they share many characteristics being part of the larger military family. For example, in a study conducted by Bradshaw, Sudhinaraset, Mmari, and Blum, (2010), one of the respondents noted that they find it easy making new friends when they move to new DoDEA schools since other students understand their experiences, since they have also been new students in a school at some point.
Interstate Compact on Educational Opportunities for Military Children
The program aims at facilitating a smooth transition from school to school for military children when their families relocate from an installation to the next (Wilson, 2010). The program addresses such issues as enrolment, eligibility, placement, attendance, and graduation. Moreover, the compact helps in promoting consistency in school policies to allow for the easy transitioning. The compact is therefore beneficial since the widely varying policies are detrimental to the learners, as they contribute to such undesirable effects as loss of academic time during the transition process. All the states and school districts that join the compact are expected to embrace the program’s consistent policy. The compact is critical in helping professionals who support learners transitioning to LEAs since it eliminates policy variations that make transitioning difficult for the military students. The consistent policy prevents learners from losing time in the transition process, as well as helping them to access suitable placement and graduate on time.
Military Culture its impact on the Social and Academic Achievement of Military Students
The two features of military culture that have the potential to affect the academic and social success of military learners include a sense of family and self-sacrifice. Self-sacrifice mostly pertains to the learners’ parents, who sacrifice their lives for the sake of their country (Cole, 2014). Self-sacrifice can have immense negative effects on the academic success of the military students due to possible challenges that it brings along. For example, self-sacrifice means that a parent can die in the line of duty or become disabled, this can be traumatizing for the learners. The trauma may lead to stress and depression, thus leading to poor academic and social outcomes among the affected learners. On the other hand, a sense of family plays a critical role in enhancing the academic and social success of the military learners since it gives a system of support, which helps them to overcome challenges, especially those associated with parental deployment (Mmari, Bradshaw, Sudhinaraset " Blum, 2010). The constant interaction with other military learners helps them to develop coping strategies as well as promote a sense of maturity and independence, which further leads to better outcomes in their social and academic engagements.
References
Bradshaw, C. P., Sudhinaraset, M., Mmari, K., " Blum, R. W. (2010). School transitions among military adolescents: A qualitative study of stress and coping. School Psychology Review, 39(1), 84.
Card, N. A., Bosch, L., Casper, D. M., Wiggs, C. B., Hawkins, S. A., Schlomer, G. L., " Borden, L. M. (2011). A meta-analytic review of internalizing, externalizing, and academic adjustment among children of deployed military service members. Journal of Family Psychology, 25(4), 508.
Cole, R. F. (2014). Understanding Military Culture: A Guide for Professional School Counselors. Professional Counselor, 4(5), 497-504.
DoDEA. (2018). About DoDEA - Organizational View. Dodea.edu. Retrieved 12 April 2018, from https://www.dodea.edu/aboutDoDEA/organization.cfm
Esposito-Smythers, C., Wolff, J., Lemmon, K. M., Bodzy, M., Swenson, R. R., " Spirito, A. (2011). Military youth and the deployment cycle: Emotional health consequences and recommendations for intervention. Journal of Family Psychology, 25(4), 497.
Esqueda, M. C., Astor, R. A., " De Pedro, K. M. T. (2012). A call to duty: Educational policy and school reform addressing the needs of children from military families. Educational Researcher, 41(2), 65-70.
Maxwell Elementary Middle School. (2017). Student-Parent Handbook 2015 - 2016. Retrieved from https://www.dodea.edu/MaxwellAFBEMS/upload/MEMS-Handbook-SY-15-16.pdf
Mmari, K. N., Bradshaw, C. P., Sudhinaraset, M., " Blum, R. (2010, October). Exploring the role of social connectedness among military youth: Perceptions from youth, parents, and school personnel. In Child " Youth Care Forum (Vol. 39, No. 5, pp. 351-366). Springer US.
Wilson, E. (2010, September 21). DOD supports military children in public schools. American Forces Press Service. Retrieved from http://www.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=60951
