Story from Cleveland.com
Written by Beth Mlady
To show the Berea City School District’s ongoing commitment to military families, Superintendent Tracy Wheeler at the March 13 Board of Education meeting announced efforts under way in pursuit of the Ohio Department of Education Purple Star Award.
Schools annually must complete a number of military-related activities and one optional activity. Some of those requirements include maintaining a military families resource page on the district website, as well as having a specially trained district liaison/staff point of contact for military students and their families.
Optional activities include hosting a military recognition event, providing professional development for staff members about special considerations for military families and forming a club for military-connected students.
More than 400 Ohio schools carry the Purple Star distinction.
Wheeler indicated that Grindstone Elementary School and Big Creek Elementary School already have submitted applications for 2023 award consideration, with winners to be announced in April. The next application period begins in November.
“One of our goals by the end of the 2023-24 school year is to have all five buildings in our district earn the Purple Star designation,” Wheeler said.
Grindstone Elementary School intervention specialist Helena Kleem-Goliat told the board that there are an estimated 13,000 students in Ohio with parents in active military service.
“What we need to do for these children in our district is to empower them with knowing we’re there to take care of them,” Kleem-Goliat said, noting that military-connected students could move six to nine times between kindergarten and high school graduation.
“They are probably the most unique set of students we have, because their lives revolve around what their parents do for a living.
“Our job as teachers, staff and community members is to make them feel welcome, no matter if they’re coming from city to city or from state to state.”
Big Creek Elementary School Assistant Principal Karen Frimel added that she has learned from her experience with students of military families the importance of keeping them connected and “how critical and how challenging it is for children when their parents are deployed.”