Serving military kids in our schools

Let’s put some action behind the words

I found it somewhat ironic that Commissioner of Education Terry Holiday’s most recent blog discusses schools supporting our military families.

Certainly, it is important for our schools to help military dependent children who move into Kentucky. A military child’s life is often disrupted by sudden move and by equally sudden absences of a parent. And, these kids know well that when their parent leaves, there is a chance they will never return.

So, I support the thrust of the commissioner’s blog whole-heartedly.

The irony, unfortunately, is that a few days ago my wife and I spent over an hour talking to the spouse of a military member currently serving in Afghanistan. This temporarily-single-parent-due-to-military-orders sadly mentioned that one child was being bullied in school.

Whether that was specifically due to the child’s status as a military dependent or not I don’t know.

In fact, I don’t care.

No child should get bullied in school.

In fact there are statutes on Kentucky’s books that require schools to take action on bullying.

Unfortunately, too often that action isn’t happening.

And, let’s get something straight. Kids are not just bullied over life style preferences. It’s happening to all sorts of kids – apparently including some who might seem different because Mom or Dad is out of town because they are serving this country – maybe dying for it.

Standing by while any child gets bullied is inexcusable, military kids included.

So, how about adding some language to that fancy compact on military kids? You see, I don’t even see bullying mentioned in that paper. We shouldn’t even have to do it, but if we need a compact just to tell our schools to treat military kids fairly, then it looks like we also need to remind some school people to enforce the existing anti-bullying laws for all kids, and that includes military kids, too.