East Valley Superintendent explains decision to close JROTC program despite pushback

EAST VALLEY, Wash. — Parents and students have been pushing back on East Valley School District’s decision to disestablish its JROTC program after this year and still have lingering questions about why it can't continue.

However, despite public comments at its latest school board meeting, the East Valley School District stood firm on its decision, which the district has attributed to lack of student interest.

“We feel pretty defeated by their decision, but we're hoping that they'll reconsider,” said Sarah Lowry-Deveny, a parent and president of the East Valley High School JROTC Booster Club.

In order to be in good standing with the Army, the program needed to have at least 100 students and two instructors, but neither requirement was met for the upcoming year. However, the district said this decision came from them alone.

“There hasn't been anything from the Army saying that they're going to do anything with our program,” EVSD Superintendent Russ Hill said. “This was a building-level decision made to try to create a master schedule and utilize the staffing to best meet the needs and interests of the students."

Lowry-Deveny said overall enrollment numbers could have been higher if 6th and 7th grade students had been surveyed for their interest in the middle school JROTC program, which the district had done in previous years.

“My daughter is in 7th grade going into 8th and yeah, when we got her registration, it wasn't even on there,” Lowry-Deveny said.

Hill said with the future of the JROTC program up in the air, they chose not to survey 6th and 7th grade students, knowing they would be making their decision based on the results of the high school survey. However, he said 8th graders — incoming freshman — were included in the survey.

Lowry-Deveny said she believes outside factors were also present in dissuading some of the high school students from registering for JROTC who were also planning on pursuing other programs.

“My son's counselor is the one who told him that he wouldn't be allowed to do the JROTC with IB or Running Start,” Lowry-Deveny said.

Hill said he's heard that from several parents and took the information to the principal, who spoke with the counselors.

“No one is recalling a conversation as such, and we've asked our community to come talk with the principal and talk with their counselors if there has been some confusion, and that just hasn't occurred at this point,” Hill said.

Hill said the district tried to encourage more students to join this year by allowing JROTC Civics classes to be cross-credited for students to count as a regular civics course. He said students were already able to cross-credit JROTC courses to meet art and physical education requirements.

When it comes to who may be able to teach JROTC classes, Lowry-Deveny said there’s now a former JROTC instructor from another school district who spoke up at the last board meeting and said he would be willing to step into the instructor role.

Hill said it's too late, as the vacant position was open for four months with no applicants after one instructor announced his retirement in December, and because their decision is based on more than the availability of a second instructor.

According to Hill, their decision is primarily based on the pre-registration survey, which included incoming freshmen and showed only 43 students interested in next year’s high school program, compared to about 70 enrolled this year.

“Kids can only take so many classes so as interest level grows here, that means it’s dwindling somewhere else, especially when you come to the elective type courses,” Hill said.

Hill said while programs like agriculture and computer science have doubled in size, the low enrollment numbers for JROTC would leave those classes with only a handful of students each and cause a negative ripple effect for other kids.

“Any time that you have five kids in one class, that means, you know, the other 25 kids that would typically be in a normal class size are then getting pushed into other classes, which means those classes end up being bigger than they need to be,” Hill said.

Hill said while the district will not have its own program next year, East Valley students will still be able to participate in JROTC extracurricular activities through the West Valley School District program.

Lowry-Deveny said it's not the same as having access to classes for school credit and will leave parents having to drive their children across the city to East Valley if they want to participate.

“I understand people are frustrated and upset, like they're losing something they care about,” Hill said. “But I think if they give us an opportunity to come in and talk with us, we can try to make the best of the situation and see what we can do to support their students to pursue their interests and develop the skills that are most important to their kids.”

Hill said they’re also exploring a way for East Valley students to attend JROTC classes in West Valley during the school day, but it’s unclear if or when that might happen.

​COPYRIGHT 2024 BY APPLE VALLEY NEWS NOW. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. THIS MATERIAL MAY NOT BE PUBLISHED, BROADCAST, REWRITTEN OR REDISTRIBUTED.