Identifying Military Students
Identifying Military Students in Schools
One way schools can help is to identify their military students. Remember, a military connected student is defined as a student with at least one parent who is a member of the Armed Forces on active duty, including National Guard and Reserve forces; and a student who's parent has recently separated from the military or recently been killed in action.
A parent’s military connection is self-reported in Infinite Campus and often servicemembers do not identify themselves when enrolling. It is important to work with staff at your school who are the first point of contact for parents to begin asking if families are military connected. Identifying military connection is not required, and parents can decline to select the identifier in Infinite Campus.
Questions to ask when enrolling students:
Have you ever served in the military?
In which branch did you serve?
Are you active duty?
When did you separate from the military?
These questions should become standard practice and asked of all new families. Then assist parents in checking their military connection in Infinite Campus. A family should have orders assigning them their new location or their separation paperwork (form DD214) and it is acceptable to ask to see it.
When asking parents to identify themselves as a military family in infinite campus, the school should take great care in explaining the confidentiality of data reporting by explaining that only numbers are reported and their military status is never publicly linked to any other identifiable information. Additionally, take time to explain why the data is important to schools, districts, and states.
Importance
Having an accurate count of military connected students is important for following 3 reasons.
Relationships
Teachers want to connect with their students and students want teachers who understand them. Research shows students have higher achievement rates and are happier at school when the adults in their lives understand their culture.
Impact Aid
The second reason is that the federal government provides schools and districts federal dollars for every military student in the form of Impact Aid. This is because LEAs lose local tax dollars because of the military bases in their states. Families that live on base do not pay state property tax and the federal government doesn't pay property taxes for the land the base resides on, thereby reducing state education funds. Impact Aid serves to offset this.
Impact Aid provides school districts that have 400 or more military-connected students or 3% of the district is military-connected with additional funding of $1000.00 per student if the student lives off the military base and $5000.00 per student if the student lives on the military base.
Achievement
Finally, the Every Student Succeeds Act expanded the categories of student success reporting to include military students. By reporting and tracking student academic data, states can ensure they are meeting the needs of military connected students the same way they ensure success for other student populations.
Schools use the data to provided resources to target student needs. Knowing a student's military connection allows schools to provide targeted support services, helps ensure educators at the school are informed of the challenges their military students face, and to enhance the learning environment of military students. Additionally, it can help inform policy and program decisions that are focused on our military connected students.
Again, the school should take great care in explaining the confidentiality of data reporting by explaining that only numbers are publicly reported and their military status is never publicly linked to any other identifiable information.