Purple Star Award

A military connected youth is a child or adolescent with a close family member serving in any branch of the United States Armed Forces, and any status, Active Duty, Reserve, or National Guard.

Students in military families face distinctive challenges related to transitioning between schools while their military family members are deployed, relocated and separated from each other.  Between kindergarten to high school graduation, military children move and change schools three times more often than their civilian peers.  These transitions have a big impact on military connected students and schools utilize multiple resources to help ease these changes for students academically and emotionally.

The Interstate Compact on Educational Opportunity for Military Children

Military families move between assignments on a regular basis.  While reassignments can often be a boon for career personnel, they can be challenging for the children of military families, especially for transitioning from school to school.

The Interstate Compact on Educational Opportunity for Military Children seeks to ensure smooth transitions for those children of military families regardless of which states or school districts they are moving between.

All 50 states have signed the Interstate Compact which provides consistent policies affecting transitioning military students.  The Compact safeguards cooperation by federal, state and local education agencies across the country on enforcement, administration, finances, communications, data sharing and training.

But the real importance of the Compact is to provide military connected students the means to address important key educational transition issues encountered by military families including enrollment, placement, attendance, eligibility and graduation.

Children of active duty members of the uniformed services, National Guard and Reserve on active duty orders, commissioned officers of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the United States Public Health Service (USPHS), and members or veterans who are medically discharged or retired for one year are eligible for assistance under the Compact.