Photo By Spc. Mason Nichols | Soldiers assigned to 91st Military Police Battalion shows off a military vehicle to a...... read more read more
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FORT DRUM, N.Y. (June 1, 2023) – The U.S. Army is a family organization which means children are no small part of the Army’s makeup.
Over the past few years, Fort Drum has made an enormous effort to stay connected with the surrounding community. This morning that effort was Soldiers from Fort Drum’s 91st Military Police Battalion participating in Black River Elementary School’s Field Day.
Sgt. 1st Class Ryan Woodruff, a military police Soldier with 91st MP and a parent of a student attending Black River Elementary gets to experience Fort Drums impact on the surrounding community first hand.
“It’s beneficial because the off-post schools have people that understand the military lives and what the kids go through, so this has been especially beneficial to my daughter because they understand the stresses the children can go through,” Woodruff said. “There are some good programs and the schools do very well with that.”
The teachers and school personnel know that a large portion of their students are military children and may provide more support when necessary. Black River Elementary schools principal Jared Plantz knows how much his teachers support their students.
“We do have a military family counselor (MFLC) stationed here at the school and she really does a lot of direct support with the children, one on one if there are more intensive needs, but she does a really nice job of working to provide direct support who might have parents are going through deployments,” said Plantz. “I think are classroom teachers do a great job informally providing support and providing whatever kids need when they’re going through hard times.”
Field day known as a time for celebrating the end of the school year has quickly become a day for Fort Drum to connect to the local communities. This connection is not just important to the communities but to the families of Soldiers living within those communities. That is why a U.S. Army sponsored MFLC works within many of the school districts local to Fort Drum.
SFC Woodruff has been able to see the effect of the teachers and counselors at Black River Elementary personally as his daughter attends the school.
“There’s always going to be issues but my daughter’s done pretty well with that especially when deployed there’s people they can talk to – again with the schools there’s the MFLC are really good with the children too,” said Woodruff.
The purpose of the MFLC is to help kids especially in military families adapt and become more resilient. This resilience is so important as many move school districts often and have parents who may be gone for long period on deployments. The teachers also work to connect with their students and help them succeed. One first grade teacher Lara Boyle has many military families passing through her classroom.
“We have kids from all sort of different countries and states so we get to learn a lot from each other and the different experience we have, I feel this makes our school unique because were able to have a diverse population that gets to hear other people experiences,” said the Boyle. “We also have kids that come in during the year and leave during the year, so we have a transient population and feel like we’re really resilient with that. “
| Date Taken: | 06.01.2023 |
| Date Posted: | 06.02.2023 14:20 |
| Story ID: | 446088 |
| Location: | FORT DRUM, NY, US |
| Web Views: | 37 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, School Districts Help Military Families Succeed, by SPC Mason Nichols, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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