Robins’ School Liaison Program: setting students up for success

ROBINS AIR FORCE BASE — Ensuring children receive a quality education is vital for families, especially those in the military. At Robins Air Force Base, a special program serves as a beacon of hope, helping families navigate the challenges they face.  

According to Program Manager Renee Daughtry, the school liaison program at Robins is one of many offered at active-duty military installations. For over 10 years, this program has supported military families in various ways, including transitioning, Permanent Change of Station (PCS) moves, enrollment, and providing information and guidance to help them navigate these challenges.

Daughtry explained that the office takes a proactive approach to supporting families.

“We try to reach out to families before they ever get to Robins. Once they have an assignment, we reach out to them, give them our information and let them know we’re here to help them with that transition,” she said.

The main goal of the school liaison team is to support military families. The team collaborates with command staff to provide data and trends regarding the education of military children. 

They work alongside organizations like Big Brothers Big Sisters to offer mentorship opportunities. Additionally, the team closely partners with the school district to ensure that the specific needs of military children are adequately addressed.

Daughtry praised Houston County Schools for their support.

“Houston County is fabulous. We’re honestly the envy of all the school liaisons in Georgia because we sit in such a great district. They are so supportive of our military families and students. They really go above and beyond for them,” she said.

The school liaison program is also designed to prepare high school graduates for entering the workforce while promoting career paths available on the base. Daughtry mentioned that the base provides several options for civilians.

“We bring them out here, not just necessarily to get them to join the Air Force, but maybe come work as a civilian. If they become an engineer, we want them to consider Robins Air Force Base as a future employer,” she said.

Military children typically attend nine different schools, according to Daughtry.

“With that comes not just educational and academic challenges, but also social and emotional,” she noted. 

Typical challenges involve moving from one school to another, leading to a cycle of immersion followed by uprooting.

“They become involved and make their friend group … they get, finally, fully immersed in their school. And then it’s been two years. They get an assignment and they have to leave again. They’re constantly the new kid,” Daughtry said.

Another challenge lies in finding schools with magnet programs, such as computer science, or tracking the number of homeschooled children with military affiliations.

The program is working at the state level to help with this, and it already has national support to help gifted and honors students maintain their designation through the Military Interstate Children’s Compact.

“If they’ve ever been enrolled in gifted or honors, they have to be placed immediately. We’ve worked closely with our schools to educate them on that in our district, and it’s really helped our military students who are in those specialized programs,” Daughtry said.

Houston County is also flexible with school selection, another testament to the district’s support, Daughtry mentioned.

“If we’ve got a military family moving on the base, they are allowed to request a school transfer to any school within the district. That’s in state law, but most of the other installations across Georgia don’t really approve those. They apply and then they say there’s no space available. But here in Houston County, they’ve approved 100% of those school transfers for our families,” she said.

Daughtry said from a liaison’s standpoint, hearing positive feedback from families is a great measure of success.

“[There’s a] satisfaction that we get knowing that we’re helping our families and that they appreciate us and let our leadership know they appreciate us,” she said.

On the community’s side, Daughtry is grateful for support from the City of Warner Robins, especially during the Month of the Military Child.

“The city of Warner Robins has been fabulous. [Mayor LaRhonda Patrick] signs a proclamation each year at the city council meeting. The city hosts an event for Month of the Military Child,” she said.

She extended a challenge to local businesses to offer discounts to military families.

“I would love to see a little bit more from the businesses throughout Houston County in recognizing and honoring those children. They have so much strength and resilience, and they sacrifice so much being a military kid. We love to honor them every April, and I would love if the community as a whole would really step up and do that,” Daughtry said.

All in all, peace of mind for military families is the top priority.

“It’s really important that we support them, and we make the schools understand how important it is to support those families as best they can, so that we can retain our force,” Daughtry said. “It’s so important that when a member deploys and they’re overseas, they don’t have to worry about their child’s education or what’s happening at their kid’s school.”