Schools key to military decisions during BRAC

Approximately 85 percent of the students whose parents are stationed at Fort Rucker attend Enterprise City Schools. Those students comprise about 35 percent of the city schools’ population, according to Enterprise Schools Superintendent Dr. Camille Wright.

Wright and Enterprise Mayor Kenneth Boswell met with area media representatives Monday to address a recently released report that connects quality of schools in an area to the military’s interest in that area.

Entitled, “The Army Goes to School: The Connection between K-12 Education Standards and the Military-Base Economy,” the study was released late last week by the Henry L. Stimson Center, a nonprofit, nonpartisan global security organization, based in Washington, D.C.

Boswell has served on the military stabilization commission for the past two years and has toured all the military installations in the state. “One of the military’s primary focuses is education,” Boswell said Monday. “It is a total concern from the viewpoint of BRAC.”

BRAC is an acronym for “Base Realignment and Closure.” It is the process that the Department of Defense has used to reorganize its installation infrastructure.

It’s not “if” there will be a next BRAC, its “when, it will occur,” Boswell said. “That’s the reason that the state of Alabama and the City of Enterprise are taking a proactive position.”

Boswell said that according to the report, the military are increasingly taking local school quality into consideration when making decisions about where to retain bases.

Boswell cited a Niche.com ranking that placed the Enterprise City Schools as the 12th best school system, out of 170 in the state. He credited Wright and the Enterprise Board of Education for a proactive approach that has included being the first city in the state to have tornado shelters at each school.

Wright credited the support of the city council and mayor to the school’s ability to be proactive. “Without the mayor and the city council and the half cent sales tax, nothing that we’re doing as far as the brick and mortar would have been possible,” Wright said. The nearly $17 million generated by the tax as well as “forgivingness” of a debt the school owed the city, combined with a $5.8 million Department of Defense grant, has gone a long way towards making the school system the quality system it is, she said. “We know that the students who come to us from Fort Rucker will be attending schools all over the nation and we want to ensure that our curriculum is just as rigorous as any of those schools.”

Wright said enhancements include the addition of math specialists and instructional coaches and the development of an aviation pipeline with schools in the Huntsville and Mobile-Baldwin County areas. Part of the curriculum being added for eighth graders is aviation, Wright said. “We feel like this will benefit our students from Fort Rucker.

“Our educational partnerships with Fort Rucker have been invaluable,” Wright added. “We’ve had a focus group from the military that's met with us on a regular basis over the last year and they’ve suggested changes or things that they know they will encounter when they go to other school systems.”

Foreign language programs have been added at a junior high school level. “That’s something that has come out of the focus group,” Wright said. “We’ve changed some of our academic and athletic processes to ease their transition in and out.”

Both Boswell and Wright say they are confident that being proactive will reap dividends during a BRAC. “We feel like we’re in line to have our schools top in the state, to ensure that when there is a base realignment we’ll be in line for that,” said Wright. Boswell agreed. “You can’t turn a ship on a dime, it takes time and when BRAC does occur, we’ll be able to stand and weather the things that are going to be asked of us,” he said.