Q&A with Military Families for High Standards’ Christi Ham on the ADC Innovation Forum
Last week I had a wonderful opportunity to attend and speak at the ADC’s Innovation Forum.
Connecting with partner organizations who also focus on education quality issues affecting military-connected students was a highlight of the convening for me. Additionally, I appreciated hearing from base commanders about their concerns regarding their local schools.
To recap, I told Military Families for High Standards about the conversations I engaged with there and lessons I learned from the event (scroll to read).
I hope it is helpful information for you on how critical partnerships between base and district leadership are for helping military-connected students succeed.
Q&A with Military Families for High Standards’ Christi Ham on the ADC Innovation Forum
MFHS: Mrs. Ham, can you describe the ADC Innovation Forum and its purpose?
CH: The Association of Defense Communities (ADC) Innovation Forum is held to bring together leaders from hundreds of installations and communities with top industry experts to encourage innovative methods of collaboration amongst these groups.
MFHS: You had the opportunity to not only attend the ADC Innovation Forum but also participate in the “Education Innovation Panel.” For our readers, who served on your panel and what was your discussion focused around?
CH: This was a new feature of the forum — focusing on education — and brought together several elements of the military-connected child arena to speak to those in attendance on what is necessary to tackle the real and persistent challenges that face installations and military families regarding education.
Joining me on the panel were Col. Ed Veiga (USA, Retired), Director of Military Families Missions for the National Math & Science Initiative, Heather Kinsey, COO for AdvancedED, and Jack Ballantine the Senior Vice President for Military Child Education Coalition.
Given that the focus of the Forum was on innovation, these four groups showcased success stories based on creative/ingenious action or suggested ways where creativity/ingenuity could shape the K-12 education outcomes of military-connected students positively. Often the situations highlighted have challenged us over time, but the opportunity to encourage innovative thinking to finally reach a new outcome and a better approach or real success was a great end-result of these conversations. Other speakers, including district superintendents, base commanders, and school board members, talked about best practices they have used in their communities to ensure that unique academic needs of military-connected kids are met no matter where they live.
MFHS: What were the overall themes you noticed?
CH: The key piece that I think threaded through all the panels was the need for Garrison leadership to reach out to their school district leaders and open an honest, strong dialogue about the issues that are active in their school and military communities. With this relationship established and tended to, both leadership groups can provide ideas, guidance, and influence to make school programs better, stronger, more successful, and better reflective of the needs of our military-connected children.
MFHS: What are the types of resources that families, district leaders, and base commanders can use to address the unique academic needs for military-connected students?
CH: There is an exhaustive list of resources from both the school district’s side and the military community’s side available. Examples are of course those organizations represented on the panels and related organizations that focus their energies on these critical education topics. For example, MFHS has a guide to school transitions for families to use. Last year, the Collaborative released a report on the Military Student Identifier and best practices that districts can use to serve their military-connected students. And MCEC has a military and community leaders’ guide to support the post-secondary success of military-connected students.
Very often, when seeking information from one group, you are immediately connected to other groups who work in tandem with them on such topics. Districts can learn of ways to better inform their faculties on the needs of military-connected children through various training programs. Garrison Base and community leaders can better understand the complexities of school program designs by taking time to learn from their School Boards and visiting school campuses.
MFHS: If you had to offer one piece of advice on how district leaders and base commanders could work together, what would it be and why?
CH: For both leadership groups, constant connectivity is essential. Districts can best address military community leaders when they understand the demands of tempo, mission, and focus for the installation they border. Command leaders can best support the families in their community when they make a point to understand the complexities of serving the broader school community. Each can best serve themselves and one-another if they establish a relationship that gives and takes, watches and listens and cooperates, with a long shared-vision for the future.
This piece was originally published on March 11, 2019 on Medium. The original post is accessible here.