Tag: DODEA

Should schools being helping students to organize protests especially during school time?:

More than 60 high school students staged a walkout here Friday to protest Pentagon policies affecting diversity initiatives, the third such demonstration at a Defense Department school since Feb. 11.

The Kadena High School students — children of airmen and DOD employees — walked out at 10 a.m. for a 15-minute protest in front of the school, principal James Bleeker wrote in a letter emailed to parents that afternoon. Stars and Stripes counted at least 80 students in photos taken from about 250 feet away. Sophomore Elliot Field organized the walkout with support from the DODEA Student Advocacy Core Team, which also backed a Feb. 21 protest at Nile C. Kinnick High School on Yokosuka Naval Base, she said by email Wednesday. She took inspiration from that protest, where about 150 students walked out.

“It’s kind of frightening because I’ve never done anything like this before,” she told Stars and Stripes outside the school before the walkout. “I’ve always sort of been like, if something needs to get done, why not just do it? Something needed to happen.” Field said she coordinated the protest with Bleeker. Miranda Ferguson, a spokeswoman for Department of Defense Education Activity-Pacific, confirmed in an email Friday that the demonstration was organized with school administrators.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link, but would these same DODEA administrators allow students to organize a MAGA protest, an anti-abortion protest, a border security protest, etc.? Where is line for organized protests during school hours?

Here is an article about a new open concept school that was constructed for DODEA students in Daegu:

Wander the halls of the new Daegu Middle High School and a you might feel like you’ve stepped into the future.

One of several “21st Century” schools that the Department of Defense Education Activity opened recently in Korea, Japan and Germany, the $20 million, 299-student facility is a far cry from most people’s childhood memories.

Its open-air studio classrooms are a contrast to the refurbished barracks where kids learned at Camp Walker before the school opened last fall. The school is so new that, on Friday, part of the cafeteria was cordoned off and filled with equipment waiting to be installed.

“This school is way, way bigger [than the old school],” said senior Nurfatihah Melendez, 17, during a tour that showed off spacious music halls, robotics laboratories and an impressive JROTC wing.  [Stars & Stripes]

You can read more at the link, but unsurprisingly the administrator have found out that the open classroom concept causes sound from other classes to going on to be a distraction and thus need to install walls.

If your kids go to middle or high school over Yongsan Garrison expect your kids to have a different school schedule next year:

Department of Defense Education Activity middle and high school students in Seoul will attend classes on a “hybrid” schedule next year that combines traditional seven-period days and block-scheduled days within a single week, officials announced last week.

The change will mean more time in the classroom and fewer mix-ups at Seoul American High School over which classes students should be attending on a given day, principal Kathleen Reiss said.

The school now operates on a block schedule, with “A” and “B” class schedules alternating daily.

“It’s constant confusion now,” Reiss said. “There’s not a day that goes by that somebody doesn’t ask me, ‘Is this A day or B day?’ ”

Under the hybrid schedule, Mondays, Tuesdays and Fridays will be seven-period days. Wednesdays and Thursdays will be block-scheduled days, with a built-in seminar period used for assemblies, makeup tests and other instructional purposes.  [Stars & Stripes]

You can read more at the link, but I love the picture the S&S decided to add to the article.