FORT STEWART, Ga. - "Welcome to the Fort Stewart Spring Education Forum" read the entry sign at Club Stewart's Ballroom, April 18. The forum, a U.S. Army Child, Youth and School Services-led event, welcomes the community to express their issues and concerns about the Department of Defense Education Activity's and public school systems.
Family Members and teachers alike sat at round tables, some raising their hands awaiting their moment to express their sentiments about the school system.
"The purpose is to see what is going on in every school," said Maria Salinas, Family Member whose son attends Kessler Elementary School at Fort Stewart, "and how we are able to help the district from a parent's perspective or point-of-view."
Salinas' first-grade son is autistic, she said. Her concern is regarding Individual Education Plans better known as IEPs.
"[The IEPs] are set in place for children with disabilities," she said. "When coming in from a public school, DoD has different categories. They would have to re-evaluate him to see whether [my son] would need the therapies that he already has in place. For me, I found that [the process] takes a lot longer than expected. I have another child who is coming in as an IEP for an evaluation, and there's a lack of communication there. These are the reasons why I decided to come here."Other areas of concern in which parents' expressed include teacher's schedules, bathroom allowance times for younger students, reduced lunch prices, absence of middle schools on the installation, lack of field trips, parents not receiving school documents from their kindergartner or first grader and poor communication from teachers to parents."
Salinas, who participated in the DoDEA portion of the forum, shared that the district also notifies the community about improvements and current changes taking place. She said that district is currently working on bathroom allowance times between classes, which have been an ongoing concern.
"I am happy that I am here because it is an opportunity for the parents to be aware of what is really going on in the school," she said. "It is a way to involve yourself because these are your children, and they are your future. Parents should just be more involved with what's going on in school."
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