Navigating High School Stability for Military Families

[00:00:00] Hello. Hello. Welcome back to the show. Today we are going to start a series on schooling. I've been wanting to talk about homeschooling for like, since I started the podcast and it just hasn't happened yet, but I do have two guests coming on. Two different guests coming on to talk about homeschooling.

[00:00:22] So that's coming down the line here in a couple of weeks today. I wanted to talk to you about a program that I had no idea existed until this last year. And so again, one of my goals for the show is to educate and to get the information out there, right? So today we're gonna talk about high school stabilization.

[00:00:43] Don't know if you've heard about it. It's a military program. There's high school, junior and senior stabilization programs in each military branch that provide stability to armed force members who have children in their senior and junior years of high school by allowing them according to each branch's policies to remain at their current assignment.

[00:01:06] So, essentially, What that means is if your kid is a junior or senior in high school, you can apply to your specific, and we're gonna get into each of the branches specifically here in just a minute. You can apply four stabilization so that your kid, your student will be allowed to finish their junior and senior year in one location and you not getting PCSed away from that location.

[00:01:29] So, The point of the program is that obviously we all know that military families move all the time. Right? And, and, and it's very challenging, especially as your kids start to get older and get into high school because. There's a lot of different things that happen in high school that make a difference for if your child is interested in continuing on to higher education and going to college and things like that.

[00:02:01] How you rank in your school, if your student is participating in sports, if you are moving all the time, it makes it really hard to develop and to get into a team when you're moving all the time. And, and then especially in your junior and senior year, it's really challenging. And so I think that it's great that they have this program to help kind of mitigate those issues that That can be, it can be really traumatic, right?

[00:02:29] If you're removing in your junior and your senior year. So what I wanted to say, so we're gonna go into each of the branches and what the, what their requirements and stuff are. I will provide links for this document that I'm getting this information off of in the show notes, so that if you have a question or you can go and, and reference it and find the forms that I'm gonna mention here to you.

[00:02:53] Diving right in the Army. So we're gonna go through each of the different branches of service. So the Army provides the high school senior stabilization program to soldiers with family members in their junior and senior year of high school. The enlisted personnel management directorate, E P M D will to the maximum extent possible, approve stabilization requests and is not supposed to place.

[00:03:20] Soldiers on assignment with report dates before the stabilization termination date, and they give a specific form and then it says to request stabilization no earlier than March 1st of the student's freshman year. And no later than the start of the student's sophomore year. So there's some lead time in this stuff.

[00:03:39] Oh, this is what I was gonna say. I started to say, and then I got, I got confused. What I wanted to say was that if you have kids that are approaching high school and you are continuing to move with your family, our family specifically, We're our, trying as hard as we can.

[00:04:04] We would really like to be out and be retired by the time the girls start high school so that they can do all four years of high school in one spot. That's our goal. Standby. I'll let you know how it, how it works out, but that's our goal. But something to think about is if you are, and, and again, this is something that you have to weigh with your unique family.

[00:04:30] In your unique situation where you wanna be and career goals and trajectory, right? Because there's some things, like if you have a specific career milestone or goal that you need to meet, you might not be able to meet that goal if you are gonna stay put for a specific period of time. You know what I'm saying?

[00:04:47] So you kind of have to, you have to kind of look at like the big picture of all of that stuff together. So one of the things that, if again, something to just keep in mind. Add it to the chess board, right? Of, okay, well this person's gonna go here and this person and I want this job, but then we need this job, but you gotta do this job to get this job, but then this guy went here, blah, blah, blah, blah.

[00:05:07] Right? The chess board, we all know how that works, so add this to the chess board. But if your kids are approaching high school and say you're getting assigned somewhere and it's a two to three year tour, and your kid is a freshman in high school, Then you would probably be applying for the stabilization so that your kid could finish high school where you are.

[00:05:31] Right? So something to think about is where is that? So maybe as your kid's approaching high school, you're not gonna be getting out, you are thinking that we might be applying for the stabilization program. Try to get a decent location, right? I mean, that kind of goes without saying. Sometimes you don't have the choice, but like if you can find, if you can pick a billet or a job or a location, and again, I know that that's not doable for everybody.

[00:05:59] But if you have options, right? Think about choosing a location that has. Multiple places that you could go. Right. So like a bigger installation a larger area. For example, the DC Metro area, there's a lot of people that go into the DC metro area. And stay there because there's so many different jobs that you can move through in that one location.

[00:06:29] Right. And I think it's, there's similar things at different bases that you go to, right? So like San Diego, if you're Naval, Naval, there's also Marines in San Diego, but. Well, I think everybody's in San Diego. But the big hubs anyways is it's 32nd street, right? So you get stationed on on a ship or you get stationed on a sub, and then there's a lot of other attachments there you can get stationed at for shore duty and things like that.

[00:06:57] So there's, there's lots of jobs that you can transition in and out of in one particular location. So if your kid is starting high school, you got a two to three year tour, see if you can get yourself somewhere where you would be happy staying for an extended period of time. Right? And again, that might not be possible.

[00:07:15] You might end up in Timbuktu and you just gotta make the best of it. But if you can put yourself in a place where you're gonna be happy to stay for a while and utilize that stabilization. Again, thinking of a, a bigger installation perhaps, or where you might like to spend three to four years would be something to think about.

[00:07:35] Okay. So back to the Army. One of the things I actually, I found a YouTube video that was interesting as well because he was looking at, there's a little bit of conflicting information. Which is shocking. Is it not? That one thing says one and then something else supersedes it and says something else, but everybody's referencing the one reg.

[00:07:58] I mean, it's, it makes, no, it never happens. I can't, I can't believe that that's the case, but it is the case. So there are, there's one particular forum that's like, you know that says senior year, and then obviously it's for a junior or a senior. Then as far as when you apply for it, so, you know, for example, the Army says no earlier than March 1st of the student's freshman year.

[00:08:23] However, there's another part of, of the reg that says that not before the sophomore year, right? So there's, there's some differing information there. So you really need to kind of dive into the reg and look at the specifics. And again, I'll link that YouTube video. So if this is something that you're looking at for your family, it's something to be aware of.

[00:08:44] Request submitted later than the start of the student sophomore year. Maybe process is an exception to the policy and it's gotta go up your chain of command and things like that. So what I wanted to share with that too, and this also came from that YouTube video that came, that was citing specific parts of the reg, is that you floated through your chain of command.

[00:09:07] If they're saying, we can't do this it still goes to the H R C, the Human Resource Coordination Center or whatever that is. It still goes through them, even if the command is saying, we can't support this. So still apply regardless of regardless of what your chain of command might say. And then what I wanted to share with that too is, oh gosh, this is one of those like, I, I, I don't know.

[00:09:41] I would be interested to hear if anybody has Has utilized this program what the results are were for you. So the, the person that I talked to, they, and most of us have our kids pretty close together, right? So your kids are like, I don't know, two to three years apart, maybe a little bit more, maybe a little bit less.

[00:10:03] And so you might have consecutive kids coming out. And so this was an Army family and they applied for stabilization for their. Junior at the time for a senior, and then when that senior graduated, they had one right behind it going into junior I two. So they were able to stay put for like six years because of the stabilization.

[00:10:21] So I think that I hope, and I know that not every command climate is the same, but I think and I hope that for the most part people Try to do the best they can to, you know, the military lifestyle is not easy and I think that the, in recent years, we are starting to, and the military is starting to realize that family is really important.

[00:10:51] They say that all the time, right? Family, family is most important, however, Mission, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. All supersedes family. So it's kind of hard to feel like that's the case sometimes, but I feel like. If you are, you know, communicating well through your chain of command, Hey, this is what's coming up.

[00:11:13] We're trying to do this for our family, for our kids, that, that's something that most commands are going to do the best they can to honor. So I just hope that that is the situation that you find yourself in. Okay, so Army, we talked about the Army. The Air Force has the high school senior assignment deferment program, and their program increases obviously the stability for military family members entering their senior year of high school.

[00:11:44] So this is saying senior specific, whereas the other reg says junior and senior. It says that active duty officers, lieutenant colonel, and below, and enlisted members, senior master Sergeant, and below, stationed in the continental United States can apply, and members who meet eligibility requirements can defer an assignment for up to one year.

[00:12:05] Approval is not automatic. Of course approval or disapproval of individual requests is based on the Air Force needs. Yeah, I know. Isn't that fantastic? It does specify though that back-to-back deferments may be possible. And dual military for dual military and. Back to back deferments may be possible.

[00:12:29] So but a couple of the requirements, this family must be living with the airmen. So again, this is for the Air Force and enrolled in deers. And I, and I, I do believe it says, I don't think the Army says this specifically, but the other guys do. And we're gonna get into the Navy and the Marines as well that your, the student has to be living with the service member at the time.

[00:12:50] So it can't be like, oh, hey, I wanna apply for stabilization, but your, your kids don't live with you. They live with. Family members or maybe you're separated or divorced and you're, they're with your spouse that's in another location. They have to be living with you and enrolled in dears.

[00:13:05] So, and then it gives the place you on the Virtual Military Personnel flight website is where you can complete the application for that. Again, I'm gonna link this document that has all of the information of where you can find the documents and things like that. The Navy allows sailors with dependents who will be entering their high school senior year to remain in the same geographic location until their child completes their senior year.

[00:13:32] P c s orders won't be issued for the sailor during this time. Sailors who are in the negotiating window will not be approved for high school stabilization programs. Eligible service members are those whose projected rotation date or p r d occurs between, which is awesome because I know p r d, like we talk about P r D all the time in our house.

[00:13:53] I know that that means that's when you're gonna rotate. But I didn't know what it stood for. Projected rotation date. Hey, there we go. Got another acronym down. Hello. Okay. So projected rotation dates occur between the month of the first day of the high school dependents junior year and the month of the high school's graduation date.

[00:14:13] So again, it says four seniors, but you, it was, it's saying that if you are selective for this program or approved for this program, you will not be rotated between the junior and the senior year. So that's pretty cool. It does specifically say again, the dependents must be enrolled in dears and residing at the same location as the service member.

[00:14:33] And this, the Navy says that the request with a positive command endorsement must be submitted no later than the first day of 12 months prior to the rotation date. So, but again, As stated in the in the regs that just because your command declines, it does not mean that it is declined. Right. So it's, it still is sent away.

[00:15:01] That's just what their, what their opinion is, what their, I don't know what the Right, how the, what the, that's what their call is. But they're not the ultimate call. How about that? Okay. So then the Marines. The Marines do not have a high school stabilization program, but the Navy and the Marines offer housing flexibility for sailors with dependents who meet certain eligibility.

[00:15:26] Criteria one program is called the Delay of Dependent Travel or D D T due to continuity of education, or c o E CO for minor school aged dependents. Okay, so a marine with a dependent who is a h a high school senior may request a, a co c o e con continuity of education. Until June 30th of the current academic year, the request may not be approved for another child who will be a senior the following year.

[00:15:58] So they're saying that they might not approve. If you have consecutive kids, they might not approve. It does say that there are other circumstances in which the D D T or delay of dependent travel may be granted for sailors with dependents in K through 12 education. And it says a commanding officer recommendation is required for the application, and then it gives you the information on where to submit the application to.

[00:16:23] So again, I will link this document with all of this information on it. I will also link that YouTube video that went specifically into the regs or regulations. That is what you would actually follow. Those are important. So I just wanted to share that with you guys. I didn't know, I had no idea that this program existed.

[00:16:43] So if you have got high school aged kids, high school stabilization, it's a thing. I think that it's important, again, wherever your family might be. It's just something to have and know that it exists and that it is a possibility for your family. Woo. Alright, so that's it. High school stabilization. Hit me up if you have any further questions about that.

[00:17:05] And we have a few, like I said, a few episodes. I have a couple of guests coming on in the next few weeks. Talking about homeschooling. Homeschooling is really prevalent in the military community and and I thought it would be cool to bring on a couple of guests to talk about, you know, how. Why they decided to homeschool their kids.

[00:17:25] What does that look? How do you pick a curriculum? What is the, you know, and just kind of some of the ins and outs of that resources. Are there resources specific for a military family? So those two are coming down the line and I hope you have an awesome day, and I will talk to you again soon