Imagine entering your senior year of high school at a brand new school in a different state – and being told that you have to take a freshman-level state-history class to graduate. And despite a perfect grade-point average, you can’t be valedictorian because you’re a transfer student.
That scenario is all too familiar to the children of military personnel, who often encounter those and other hurdles when they move with their service parent to a new assignment.
The children of military personnel already have the kind of stress in their lives that children of civilians rarely encounter. They face frequent moves, having to leave friends behind and make new ones. And one or more of their parents might be deployed at any time to a war zone.
So it makes sense to try to take at least some of the stress out of their lives in a simple way: by smoothing their transition to a new school. House Bill 1075, which is co-sponsored by state Rep. Larry Seaquist, D-Gig Harbor, tries to do just that by making Washington the 12th state to sign on to the Interstate Compact on Educational Opportunity for Military Children.
The compact would establish an interstate commission to write rules that would “level the playing field” for military children moving to another state. For instance, states that signed on would agree that children who move midyear could continue in the same grade even if their new school has different age requirements. It would mean students who are enrolled in honors or advanced classes in one state could continue those classes in another state.
Course requirements, immunization rules, eligibility for sports and other extracurricular activities would also be covered under the new rules. And the interstate group would be able to settle disputes between member states.
The cost of state participation in the compact is less than $200,000 per biennium, and a state task force that spent six months studying the issue recommended that the state sign on this year. Even in the face of the huge deficit, $100,000 is budget dust.
Washington ranks seventh in the nation in the number of active-duty military personnel, and many of them have children in local schools. Smoothing those children’s sometimes stressful school transitions is good for military families and for local school districts charged with educating their children.
