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Parents are their children’s biggest advocate, and when families are transitioning between schools, it’s important for parents and guardians to speak up and know what their children need.
The Kaiserslautern Mili-tary Community School Liaison Officers are community facilitators who connect schools, families, and community services to address education issues impacting military children.
“My job is to ensure the successful transition of military children from school to school, whether it’s transferring credit hours for a high school student or making sure children that need special education services or individualized education plans receive the care they require,” said Sarah Dorosky, 86th Mission Sup-port Group School Liaison Officer.
SLO duties include advising the installation com-mander on matters relating to schools and military child education; promoting communication and collaboration between schools, military organizations, community services, students and parents; and providing transition assistance and information for families moving to the KMC.
“My family and I will be (making a permanent change of duty station) this summer, and I’ve never moved with school-age children before, and certainly not overseas,” said Master Sgt. Kimberly Franklin, 7th Air Force Judge Advocate military justice noncommissioned officer in charge. “Ms. Dorosky was able to provide me with a lot of useful information that I will need upon arrival to register my child for school.”
Connecting parents and students with information, resources, and people, SLOs work together from base to base, helping families make sense of processes that can appear difficult to tackle.
These transition experts help resolve issues when they cannot be resolved through proper chain of command and provide consistent support for families and students throughout the world.
There are 11 Department of Defense Education Activi-ty schools in the KMC and just a few Army and Air Force SLOs in the area helping more than 8,000 students make a positive school transition.
SLOs also help students who attend private schools, internationals schools, and children who are home-schooled find the options that work best for them and their family.
Understanding the structure of DODEA schools, what a family’s options are, and understanding education policies can go a long way toward making a permanent change of duty station go more smoothly.
“I love helping families transition into the area,” Dorosky said. “Most of the time, they are very excited and I am excited for them because I know the kind of positive experiences they can have here. PCS’ing overseas is not as easy as it is going from stateside to stateside so anything I can do to help make it easier is very rewarding for me.”
For more information about what the SLO does, check out the SLO page under the “PCS info” tab on ramstein.af.mil.
The Air Force KMC SLO is located on Ramstein in Bldg. 2118, room 231. To contact the Air Force KMC SLO, email 86msg.slo@us.af.mil or contact 4809372 and commercially at 06371 479374.
