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Missouri schools join forces to help military children

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Lengthy separations from a parent serving in the military. Heightened anxiety about the safety of their mom or dad in uniform. Frequent moves from one town to the next and leaving familiar things behind. Overlaps in school curriculum and graduation requirement differences. Watching a military parent return home with an injury, or an invisible one like depression or post-traumatic stress. The grief of losing loved ones in combat. These are some of the realities that take a toll on young military hearts every day.

Navigating these challenges takes a village. Some Missouri schools have joined forces with families in the Armed Services to help provide military students with a softer academic landing.

Dr. Blaine Henningsen is the assistant commissioner in the Office of College and Career Readiness at the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. He tells Missourinet the school districts near the state’s two active-duty bases – Fort Leonard Wood in Waynesville and Whiteman Air Force Base in Knob Noster and Warrensburg – are especially committed to the state’s more than 12,000 military kids.

Missouri Capitol (Photo courtesy of Gov. Parson’s Flickr page)

Take Knob Noster, for instance. It has a feature smack dab on the home page of its website detailing its commitment to the military student population.

“With two out of every three Knob Noster students being military-connected, we understand the challenges of military children and families that result from frequent PCS assignments and deployments. The education of all students is very important to us and our team is committed to facilitating your transition into our schools in a welcoming, supportive, and positive manner. Once enrolled, we are dedicated to providing excellent, personalized learning and leadership opportunities for your children,” the page says. “For 2016 and 2017, Knob Noster Public Schools received the highest Annual Performance Report from the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education of all school districts in the region. In 2017, Knob Noster Public Schools also produced the top Advanced Placement Qualifying Scores in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math of all high schools across Global Strike Command.”

Global Strike Command is a U.S. Air Force command in charge of America’s nuclear weapons arsenals. It includes the storage of weapons and weapons systems delivery.

Liz Clark serves as Whiteman Air Force Base’s school liaison for 19 Missouri public school districts in the Knob Noster area and all the way up to the Jackson County region. She tells Missourinet many programs are in place to help these families at home and at school.

“If the family is under stress, the active-duty member can’t do the mission,” Clark says. “We want to help make sure the family is as prepared as possible with every resource they can have so that when it comes time for deployment or when it comes time to PCS, which is changing from one base to another, that they’re ready.”

She says the base works one-on-one with families transitioning from other bases, for deployment reasons, and for other events. It holds camps for kids, team-building workshops, and helps students apply for college scholarships. Operation Homefront hooks up each military student with a free backpack annually.

Clark says the base works closely with the military life counselors in school districts. There is a peer-to-peer program in the schools, essentially a buddy system, to pair up a new student with a student that has been around for a while. The base also works closely with the Exceptional Family Member Program to help connect family members with special needs and get them support services.

She says new initiatives and options happen frequently, like virtual services, grant opportunities, and STEM programs for math and science lovers.

Clark says the programs have been very beneficial.

“The military member, of course, is who signs up. It’s the whole family unit that is really serving,” she says.

The state plans to launch a Purple Star School Program in August to showcase schools who are going above and beyond the call of duty to support Missouri’s military kids. The Military Child Education Coalition says nine other states have similar programs and when Missouri launches one, there will be 10. Henningsen says the program is an effort that has been in the works for a couple years.

Missouri Capitol (Photo courtesy of Gov. Parson’s Flickr page)

“I think the various branches of the military are really taking a long, hard look at the communities where their bases are located and they are looking at the quality of life situations that those communities offer. We think Missouri is in a good place, says Henningsen. “When we work with our economic development people around the state, they have really emphasized the importance of these military bases, not only in terms of the jobs and the economic impact they have on their local communities, but all around the state because there are lots of supporting industries and businesses. What we are seeing here is when we have these thousands of military personnel deployed to Fort Leonard Wood or Whiteman Air Force Base, at the time of their leaving military service, we’re seeing many of those move back to other areas of the United States. But we want them to know how important they are to us and we want them to really consider Missouri as a place to live, work, and to raise their families after their military service.”

Joe Driskill, the executive director of the Missouri Office of Military Advocate, says U.S. Department of Defense information updated this year shows Missouri has a total of roughly 43,000 members in military uniform and service civilians.

The program requirements are a work in progress but Henningsen says they are expected to include a designated military family liaison, professional development for teachers to help these students, and various military family recognition efforts.

“I think this Purple Star Program will show military families, when they move into these new communities, that they have a friend here in the local communities and that they have someone to go to,” he says.

According to the Military Child Education Coalition, a military-connected child can expect to move six to nine times from kindergarten through their high school graduation, with approximately 200,000 students transitioning to a new school in any given year. It says about 80% of America’s military kids attend public schools. Schools are often a source of stability for these students.

Missouri Governor’s Mansion (Photo courtesy of Gov. Parson’s Flickr page)

“The physical, social and emotional well-being of military children is essential not only to that student’s success in the classroom, but also the success of their family who have dedicated their lives to serving our country,” Missouri Education Commissioner Margie Vandeven said in a press release.

Gov. Mike Parson, a U.S. Army veteran, has proclaimed April as the Month of the Military Child. He wants to pay tribute to Missouri’s military children for their commitment and sacrifice as they support their family members who have sworn to serve and protect our country.

“When parents serve our country, their kids serve too,” he said in a press release.

Parson has designated today as “Purple Up Day” – a day to encourage Missouri businesses and citizens to wear purple and hang purple ribbons to show support for military children. The color purple represents all branches of the military; it is the combination of each of their respective colors combined into one. The Missouri Capitol dome and Governor’s Mansion in Jefferson City will also be shining the color purple tonight.

Copyright © 2021 · Missourinet

(AUDIO) Missouri native prepares to blast off to space

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On a farm near southern Missouri’s Richland, Mike Hopkins grew up watching with fascination as astronauts rocketed into space. America’s space shuttle program inspired him to want to reach for the stars. Those were the days of the space shuttles Challenger and Discovery launching into orbit.

PHOTO DATE: 12-29-16
LOCATION: Bldg. 8, Room 183 – Photo Studio
SUBJECT: Official astronaut portrait of Mike Hopkins in an EMU suit.
PHOTOGRAPHER: BILL STAFFORD

Today, Hopkins is living out his childhood dreams. He is commander of a crew scheduled to take off into space on October 31 and head to the International Space Station.

“You got to see the launches on TV at school. Everybody would go to the auditorium and they’d have the TVs set up on the stage and you got to see that,” says Hopkins. “And you’re just looking at that going, ‘Wow, I’d love to do that.’ It just feels right. I think those of us that are blessed to have jobs like that where it feels like this is where you are supposed to be, I think we are all very fortunate. So hopefully our mission will be able to do the same thing. When they get to see the crew and our different backgrounds and where we came from, hopefully everybody out there will find one of us that they can connect with that can help inspire them.”

Hopkins, 51, will be aboard the second manned flight of SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft. The crew is blasting off in the same vehicle that launched into space over the summer with St. Louis County native Bob Behnken on board.

Hopkins will be joined by NASA astronauts Shannon Walker and Victor Glover, as well as Soichi Noguchi from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. Their mission is expected to last until April 2021. Hopkins says the plan is for the crew to return by plunging into the water – just like Behnken did in August.

The astronauts will live aboard the International Space Station (ISS). Hopkins describes the ISS as alive.

“You find that out when it’s after work hours and you’ve turned out the lights and people are in their crew quarters going to bed and you’re kind of alone in some of the main modules. You just hear and you can feel this vibration of the equipment that’s keeping you alive and it’s like a heartbeat,” he says. “You get that sense of just how special this vehicle is because it’s standing between you and the vacuum of space. You just really feel a connection to it.”

The space station flies at an average altitude of 248 miles above Earth. It circles the globe every 90 minutes at a speed of about 17,500 mph.

Have you ever wondered how massive the station is? Let’s put it this way – the ISS spans the area of an American football field and weighs more than 861,000 lbs. The complex has more livable room than a five-bedroom home, with two bathrooms, a gym and a 360-degree bay window.

Its main construction was completed between 1998 and 2011 but continues to grow.

The ISS is bright enough that it can be seen from Earth at night without the use of a telescope by star gazers who know a thing or two. NASA has an interactive map to find out where to spot the station.

The space mission will mark the second one for Hopkins. He has logged 166 days in space and conducted two spacewalks totaling 12 hours and 58 minutes.

“I’m excited to float again. There’s nothing like that,” he says. “It’s an experience that is hard to describe and that’s actually one of my goals when I go up this time is to figure out how to describe – how to put it into words to people down on Earth.”

Hopkins has also served his country in the U.S. Air Force. He is currently a colonel in the newly-launched U.S. Space Force – a space warfare branch of America’s military.

His mother and stepfather, Barbara and Dennis Duffy, reside in central Missouri’s Camdenton. His father, Ogle Hopkins, is deceased, and his stepmother, Paula Hertwig Hopkins, lives on the farm outside Richland near Ft. Leonard Wood.

Listen to the interview with NASA astronaut Mike Hopkins:

Copyright © 2020 · Missourinet

Missouri astronaut prepares for historic SpaceX launch

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Later this month, north St. Louis County native Bob Behnken will put on his spacesuit and command the historic SpaceX flight to the International Space Station. He will strap into his seat in the cockpit of the Dragon spacecraft and fire up the vehicle. After a countdown concludes, Behnken and another NASA astronaut will lift off from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida.

He will be aboard the first manned U.S. spaceflight in nearly a decade. The May 27 mission is also the first attempt by a private company – SpaceX – to fly astronauts to orbit.

Behnken, a Pattonville High and Washington University graduate, grew up being inspired by NASA’s programs. That inspiration has launched him into space two other times. He has logged more than 1,000 flight hours in 25 different aircraft.

Behnken says the coronavirus situation has shifted launch preparations.

“What’s really happened is the normal quarantine that astronauts go through about two weeks prior to launch to really make sure that we don’t take anything to the International Space Station or get the crew on orbit sick or be sick when we get on orbit. We’ve had to kind of stretch out and kind of begin closer to ten weeks prior,” says Behnken, a U.S. Air Force colonel.

He says the coronavirus will change the way the public gets to share the experience with the crew. For space shuttle launches, hundreds of thousands of people usually watch the launch at the Kennedy Space Center and nearby beaches. But the coronavirus outbreak has led NASA and SpaceX leaders to encourage the public to instead watch the liftoff on TV or online.

NASA is limiting the number of guests permitted at the space center, and the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex is not selling tickets for public viewing on NASA property. The visitor complex closed indefinitely in mid-March.

Behnken says this mission is the first one his son will get to watch him take part in.

“He’s seen me do it in old videos but he hasn’t seen me do it for real,” he says.

Behnken and his wife, K. Megan McArthur, are both astronauts.

“It’s been really interesting, I think for both my wife and I, to have gone through the process of seeing each other launch in space. That’s an aspect of our relationship I think that most couples can’t share,” he says. “Because I’ve seen her take that risk and had it be in front of her and I’ve done that to her.”

The length of the latest mission is unknown.

Copyright © 2020 · Missourinet