School liaisons play big role in easing transition

  • Published
  • By A1C Christopher Gross
  • JBER PAO
JOINT BASE ELMENDORF-RICHARDSON, Alaska --  Moving from installation to installation can often be very stressful for families. There are so many things to take into consideration like getting there on time, where to live, getting household items moved and much more.

One of the other things parents must take into consideration is their children's education. When on the move, trying to get children enrolled into a school before arriving may prove difficult.

That's why every Air Force and Army installation has a school liaison or a liaison team to ease the process and help families navigate through the system.

Here at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson there's a team of four school liaisons responsible for the Anchorage and Matanuska-Susitna Valley schools. Approximately 70,000 students attend these schools and roughly 15 percent of those students belong to military families.

This team is here to inform families of Airmen and Soldiers of referrals regarding local school districts and other educational options including home schooling, private schools, charter schools and cyber or virtual schools.

They also get involved in the schools setting up programs to help transitioning students and they hold meetings with faculty informing them these moves can be rough and what signs to look for when a child is having trouble coping with a deployment.

"I think it's important for them to understand the issues of military families," said Brian Griggs, one of JBER's four school liaisons. "A little bit about our culture enough to welcome them and know that they didn't choose to move here today, (but) they were sent here."

Griggs, along with his three counterparts, said the schools are receptive and understanding of the changes military children endure and they're eager to help.
One way the Anchorage School District has helped is by hosting a student-run class called Plan Academic and Career Excellence. It assists new students with registration and other transition needs.

The PACE program provides newcomers with school tours and an introduction to the school community, Anchorage and Alaska as a whole. Students also discuss strategies for dealing with change and stress.

Rebecca Vano, an English teacher at Bartlett High School, said she feels this program has been successful, and the students who lead the classes are eager in teaching and helping others.

Aside from PACE, Vano said she feels military school liaisons have played a significant role in the schools.

"Having a liaison to actually spend time in the school or working with teachers and administrators to build programs, provide us a perspective we just don't have," she said.
Along with programs throughout the schools there are also eight military life consultants who either work full or part time in the schools. They're available for short term counseling and are there for the needs of military children who are experiencing grief, transition, deployments or other adversities.

Some other programs or services the school liaisons are involved with include Partnership Programs, where students volunteer in the schools, student, parent and teacher luncheons and assisting personnel and families to resolve problems which were not solved through using the school chain of command.

The four liaisons on JBER are responsible for an area of the two major school districts. Griggs handles Anchorage area schools, Jena Bienia handles the schools on the installation, Adele Daniels takes care of the schools in the Eagle River area and Donald Cole is responsible for the schools in the Mat-su Valley.

For questions regarding the school liaison program, call 384-7500, 384-1505, 384-2369 or 240-3265.