(electronic squeaking) - Roger, 4807 approaching runway seven bravo. (lively music) - The Air Force has announced the creation of a new information operations technical training school. - The First Command simply must arm our Airmen to out-think, outperform, out-partner, out-innovate any potential adversary. - Air Force Basic Military Training has an updated curriculum with a new focus on readiness and lethality. (electronic squawking) - The First Command, the Air Force starts here. (booming) - Hello, everyone, and welcome to "The Air Force Starts Here" podcast. I'm your host for this professional development podcast, Jennifer Gonzalez, from the AETC Public Affairs Team. Well, as you know, this podcast is dedicated to bringing total force big A Airmen tips, tricks, and lessons learned from recruiting, training, and the education worlds. But within the worlds of recruiting, training, and education, we also have to balance our family life. Family life comes with its own set of unique stressors, and if you have school-age children, especially right now, you're in a league of your own. Schooling during the time of COVID 19 looks very different for every family, every district, and every state. Right now I have a student going to virtual third grade, and it has been a challenge every single day. But there are resources for school-age families, and here to discuss them is Miss Lori Phipps, who is the director of the School Liaison Program for the Air Force. Hello, Lori. Thanks so much for joining us. - Thank you so much for having me. This is a great opportunity, so I appreciate you inviting me. - We are so happy to have you. So tell me, Lori, a little bit about yourself. - Well, I am prior active duty Air Force. I spent my time in as security forces. So I bring to the table the knowledge of being in the military, being a part of the military family. I am also married, was married to the military. My husband is retired after 20 years. So again, I bring that lens to it as well. And then I've been in a DOD civilian in Child and Youth Program and in School Liaison for the last, I was School Liaison at Joint Base San Antonio for nine years, and then I, as when this position was created for the Air Force, when the School Liaison Program moved under Child and Youth Programs, I went to headquarters to take on this position and love the challenges every day that this opportunity provides. - How many times have you PCS-ed? - I've PCS-ed a total of five times, and because my husband was also a security forces, it was kind of an interesting PCS cycle. So not quite like, you know, a traditional outside of your AFSC's married mil to mil. We do have two daughters that grew up in the military, so to speak, and again, so we experienced these transitions that our families go through quite relatively, and they weren't easy. At that point, we did not have the resources that are out there available now. Our oldest daughter was a competitive gymnast, so that limited opportunities for growth and development for what she was after. Our youngest daughter was a competitive volleyball player. So again, those type of aspects on top of the education piece had to be taken into consideration each time that we PCS-ed. - And that is huge. The education portion of PCS-ing for our military families is a huge factor for a lot of families. And that's kind of where your program comes to play, right? - Oh, absolutely, because in order for our families to survive and, you know, it's just, and that's not necessarily the word survive, but just to thrive in being a military family with all of the intricate challenges that it comes with, we have to support our families through those challenges. You've got transition challenges. You've got deployment challenges. You've got re-integration challenges because all of that affects our big A Airmen in the end. So our program focuses on that intentional and focused support programming for K through 12 education, to not only help our families, but also help our educational teachers and leaders understand what our military students experience and what their needs are to help them thrive and empower our children to not only survive, but to thrive. - So talk about the portion where you said, "help our families." What exactly does a School Liaison Program, School Liaison Office do for our military families? - For our military families, we provide that K through 12 support and pre-K, you know, so it's our baseline services where they're designed to provide that consistency across our installations, obviously, and we help build our military families' resiliency because our families, the parents are military members. They're the best advocates for their kids. So we're able to help provide them the opportunities. We provide such things like resource and referrals. So say, for instance, a family is PCS-ing and they wanna know, again, I'll use my daughter as an example. We had to find competitive gyms in the area. So, you know, if I had a school liaison that was able to say, "Hey, you know, "here's the area of where the competitive gymnastics is," or she was advanced AP classes. "Hey, these are the school districts "that offer advanced AP classes." We have families that call and say, "Hey, I want a certain JROTC program." And so the school liaisons would be able to say, "Hey, that's this. "These are the school districts that offers those programs." The important thing to remember about the school liaison is that they have to remain neutral at all times because they're about building relationships to help our families, and not only our families, but to help our students maneuver these transitions. So it's important that they keep those relationships strong with not only our educators, but also our leadership. So they also work in, they'll help out PCS. We talked about that a little bit. They can talk school districts and boundaries, so they can tell you, because in each base the school districts and boundaries are outlayed differently. So again, it may present a challenge, and it's important for military families, the first thing they wanna do when they PCS in is to get back to the normal, you know, to find a home, and get in the home, and get back to some sort of normal, and be a part of that community. Because we are community-driven, as far as, that'd be pick up, we move, we're in that community, and now we're ready to continue on with this supporting our mission. So it's important that school liaisons are able to articulate, "Hey, this district goes this way, "and this boundary goes this way. "And here's the law that can help you navigate "those issues." Talking about what's available for local education models. So meaning that, hey, we have a high contingency of home-schoolers here, or we have a magnet school programs, or we have baccalaureate program, those types of things. Being able to offer our families graduation and scholarship information, College, Career, and Military Prep, working with our recruiters regularly to talk about what it takes to be a military, to come into the military and what aspects we can use. Helping present college fairs and those types of things on the installation. Providing workshops, they provide workshops for families. They offer support groups. They work with EFMP Family Support coordinators and work in the special education realm for them. But they're also a part of the compliance piece for the Interstate Compact. So for those of you that's the MIC3, the Military Interstate Children's Compact Commission, which is, for lack of a better term, a law or a compact that has been signed that the school liaisons are that first line in the chain of command for any issues regarding that when they register into a school district. So that's just some of the things that a school liaison would be able to offer a family. It's important, too, because every school district is different, and every installation community is different. So that School Liaison Programs will offer very similar, but yet it will be community-specific because their job, they've been tasked to create, help create a purple capacity community, meaning that that community surrounding that installation is able to accept military members very easily transitioning in, while they're there being able to work with the schools, et cetera, and help with that education piece, and then transitioning them off to their next duty station or their forever home, whichever it is. - Wow, it sounds like for a military family who's PCS-ing, the School Liaison Office of wherever it is that they're going is one of those touch points that they probably want to get to pretty early on in that process of moving. - Absolutely, and I will. I'm sorry, I will tell you that it's important for families to know because we PCS not only the Air Force installations. So, we PCS the joint bases or PCS into NATO assignments, but there are full liaisons at every Air Force installation worldwide, but we also team up with our joint service counterparts. And our program is very similar in each one of the branches of service, and we are truly purple. So it doesn't matter where you go, even if there were, even if our members are serving as a recruiter, there is a school liaison that will help them. And it doesn't matter what branch of service. They have such a tight scaffolding that has been created to support our military families, no matter where they are in the world, that it's important for, yes, for families to know who your school liaison is and reach out to them, whether you're gettin' ready to PCS, or whether you're having concerns at the school. The only thing school liaisons won't touch in the school district is behavioral issues or disciplinary issues, but other than that, anything school-related, they will, they will help work through, and navigate, and steer a family in the right area for resources. - That's wonderful. The graduation and scholarship information, I think, for families, especially since we're already within the school year, it's something they can look forward to in the coming months, but how exactly are they helping our commanders? - Well for our commanders, they're their right hand. They should be the right hand of our commanders when it comes to K through 12. They serve as the commanders' to me subject matter expert for all K through 12 education issues or concerns or policies or anything regarding K through 12 on that installation. So they're going to be our commanders' advisors for educational issues, requirements within the state as well. They will also help with the installations. They become the installation representative for local and state-led educational engagement. So the school liaison will be right there with the commander, or should be right there with the commander, as they help mitigate any challenges that are going on with the local school district and/or even at the state level. They are the point of contact, again, for your commanders. The commanders should be leaning on them, especially through, like, COVID. They, immediately, the school systems were shutting down and those types of things, so the school liaison was working hand-in-hand with the commanders to say, "Hey, this is what the school districts are "proposing to do," and here's so we could outline and lay out a perfect plan for that local installation. So they will advocate with the commander for educational needs of the military children in that local community. And anytime that there is force structure changes at that installation that impact the total number of military connected students, those school liaisons will also be engaged. School liaisons are also the continuity to sustaining those insulation educational partnerships during leadership transitions. School liaisons have regular access and work regularly with civic leaders, superintendents, post-secondary institutions, deans, because they're working in those programs to help advocate for military kids and military family members. But also they're bridging that gap. So when a commander leaves and PCS-es, that school liaison is still there. So again, being able to, you know, so that's that continuity piece, and when the new commander comes in, that school liaison will help bridge that educational gap. The school liaisons are heavily engaged in the new Supporting our Military Families, Strategic Basing Initiative. The school liaisons are in the second round where they will give direct information that could impact basing, the strategic basing decision. So the school liaisons was established as an installation commander-driven program. So that is important for commanders, the wing commanders to understand, is that they are able to articulate, just like the SARC, VPI, those programs. They are equal to those programs and should be at the level that they are able to have that vertical and horizontal communication with their school liaison. Again, because they are working with civic leaders, they're weighing the districts the school districts and educational opportunities in the area, so the most important thing that I could say to a commander is know who your school liaison is and lean on them for K through 12 education, whether it's public, private, homeschool; they have the pulse on education and your community and are your subject matter experts. Now, we also have certain Air Force-led states, and those commanders will be working hand-in-hand directly with the school liaison as they are the Department of Defense reps in those states and will be bringing all of the issues to the state level. So again, those are opportunities. Again, that's the importance, the importance and the different levels for the, what the school liaison does. - And, you know, education is really coming to the forefront. Why is it that education is so important to our Air Force? - Well, to be honest with you, it's education is important because it's cultural. We breed and live in the education world, as far as the culture, because, again, it's always about making ourselves better, but the key thing in regard to education and why it's so high visibility right now, and why it's being stressed is because it's a retention issue and a readiness issue. It's a retention issue for our force because families are leaving because they're turning down assignments or they're leaving the Air Force because of the schools surrounding the installation, and that the education piece is not up to where it potentially needs to be for that particular state or installation. But it becomes a readiness issue as well because if schools are not producing quality graduates, the lethality of our force begins to diminish. So again, between these two issues at military child education is a quality of life, Chief of staff reporting initiative that stays and continues to be a top priority for all of our military members. - So, knowing this, how can families find, families and school districts, find the SLO office in their local area because these offices are everywhere, right? So if I'm at Luke, or if I'm at Goodfellow - Right. - there's a SLO. - Yes, and the school liaison sits at various locations around on the installation. So there's listings of all the joint service. So not only Air Force, but all of our sister services on the DoDEA Partnership page. There is a downloadable listing for all school liaisons worldwide. So that's one place that families can go to. The other opportunity for families to find out is also through the MIC3 website. The Military Interstate Children's Compact Commission has a list of school liaison there as well. We have an Air Force (indistinct) School Liaison Facebook page. And you can also, if you don't know who your local school liaison, you can message through that, and we'll be able to provide you a link and there as well. There are many school liaisons that have Facebook accounts and Facebook pages that they are constantly posting out information and publicizing information. You can also look on the FSS web pages. The school liaisons will have a contact information located there as well. - Well you guys definitely have a robust mission and do a lot for our families and our communities. And I really appreciate you and the offices throughout our AATC wings. Do you have anything else that you'd like to add about the School Liaison Program maybe that I'm forgetting to ask or that you think would be important for our families, commanders, and school districts to know? - One thing I would like for everyone to know is that your school liaison is a resource. They're standing by to accept you, accept your questions, no matter what they are, to lead you into potentially provide your resources as well as help navigate any conditions that you have in the school, or even for schools with military families. And that's what they're here for. They are a one-stop shop for pre-K through 12 education. So kind of like our education center for pre-K through 12 education. Think of them like that. They will be transparent. They're responsible for building relationships at all level and have a high engagement. So again, it's important for everyone to get to know who their school liaison is not when you need them, but before you need them. Be proactive. Get to know them because there's always opportunities to learn, and grow, and volunteer, and do things like that, and learn about the program. But again, we don't want you to learn about us in a crisis situation. We want you to know about us and know that we are a resource and help us bring that positive resource to our families and be able to navigate the challenges of the K through 12 education system and/or and our the military lifestyle. Because for our school districts, we're there. We have to remain neutral between our three distinct customer lenses are our commanders, and community partnerships, our educators, and our families. So it's important that all three entities get to know their school liaison very well and work hand-in-hand with them and really move forward the education parameters in that those states that they work in, they work and live in. - Well, thank you so much, Lori, for all the information, and thank you for the subscribed stream or download. As a reminder, you can follow Air Education and Training Command and the AATC Command Team on social media. We're on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, and you can catch up on all the latest news on our website at aetc.af.mil. From the entire AETC Public Affairs Team, I'm Jennifer Gonzalez, and talk to you next time on "The Air Force Starts Here."