More active-duty military parents will soon be able to enroll their children in schools operated by the Defense Department on bases in the continental United States — even if they live off base.
A new law will allow full-time, active-duty service members assigned to specific installations to request that their children be enrolled in the school operated by the DOD, regardless of whether they live on base. Children may be allowed to attend the school if space is available.
The change will apply only to families at certain bases. In the coming months, service officials and officials with the Department of Defense Education Activity will decide which bases will participate in the new program.
The program ends the blanket requirement that students must live on the installation to qualify for attendance to these schools, which are generally valued by military families for their academic achievement scores and programs for military children.
There are 13 installations in seven states in the continental U.S. that have a mixture of 45 DODEA elementary, middle and high schools. The domestic bases with DODEA elementary schools also have universal pre-kindergarten classes operated by DODEA — except for Fort Campbell, Kentucky, and Fort Novosel, Alabama, which will open their pre-K classes over the next several years, pending construction and renovation.
The new law, a provision in the fiscal 2025 National Defense Authorization Act, builds on a pilot program at four installations that began in the 2022-2023 school year. The law requires the new, expanded program to start by late June. It doesn’t include a limit on the number of installations that can participate in the program, nor does it place a time limit on the length of the program.
The first four installations in the program were selected by officials in the individual service branches. Those bases are:
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Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, where about 440 students living off base are enrolled on a space-available basis
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Fort Jackson, South Carolina, where about 230 off-base students are enrolled in the program
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Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama, where about 215 off-base students are enrolled
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Naval Support Facility, Dahlgren, Virginia, with about 20 off-base students enrolled
Some of these installations have waiting lists for off-base families wanting to enroll, said Will Griffin, spokesman for the Department of Defense Education Activity.
According to the new law, the secretary of defense will determine whether a military installation will participate in the space-available program based on the readiness needs of that military department and the capacity of the DODEA school to accept additional students, as determined by the DODEA director.
“It’s great to give families that flexibility,” said Eileen Huck, acting director of government relations for the National Military Family Association. “If there are spaces available and families want to send their kids to a DODEA school, I think it’s great that this opportunity is going to be available to them.”
There are a lot of reasons why a DODEA school might be the best fit for a family, even if they don’t live on the installation, she said. “Convenience, and obviously DODEA schools offer a great education. So if it works for DODEA and it works for the services, I think it’s a win-win all around.”
Transportation isn’t provided for students who live off base.
Defense officials must brief the House and Senate armed services committees by April 1 on which installations will participate in the expanded program and how many off-base students are enrolled in the schools currently participating in the program.