A challenge to every school district in Placer County

I want to tell you about a mother I'll call Sarah. Her husband was deployed unexpectedly – orders came fast, the way they always do – and within days she was alone with three children, ranging from second grade to eighth, living off base in Placer County. She was new to the area. She didn't know the district boundaries. She didn't know which schools her kids were zoned for, or whether they were even in the same district. She didn't know who to call, what paperwork to bring or whether the credits her oldest earned at their last school would transfer cleanly. So, she started calling. She got voicemail. She got transferred. She got conflicting information from two front offices about what documents she needed. She drove to three schools in a single day – two districts, enrollment processes, different staff who had no common system for receiving a military family mid-year. By the time all three children were finally enrolled, they had missed nearly two weeks of classroom instruction. Two weeks of math. Two weeks of reading. Two weeks of the social fabric that holds a kid together when everything else in their life has just been upended. That scenario plays out in Placer County schools more than most of us realize. Beale AFB is 30 miles north of Lincoln, and military families routinely choose our communities – Roseville, Rocklin, Lincoln, Auburn – to settle when stationed there. These are our neighbors. Their kids sit in our classrooms. And on average, a military-connected student will change schools six to nine times before they graduate high school. Six to nine times! For families like Sarah's, that means navigating this alone, over and over again. Placer County's schools are great schools. But "great" and "ready for military families" are not automatically the same thing. Being ready takes a specific kind of intentionality – a staff member who knows how to fast-track enrollment, a web page military parents can find before they move, a student who will walk the new kids through the building on day one, a counselor who understands that a transcript from a school in Georgia, or Michigan, does not map perfectly onto California's graduation requirements. Without those things in place, families like Sarah's lose weeks they can never get back. This is exactly what the California Purple Star School Designation is designed to address. Created by state law in 2021, the program recognizes schools that have formalized these supports. There is no grant to apply for, no new budget line to defend. There is an application, four concrete requirements and a designation valid for three years that tells military families: This school is ready for you. I serve on the Roseville Joint Union High School District Board. This year, our district became the first in Placer County – and all of Northern California – to earn Purple Star Designation at four school sites. I am proud of that. But I want to be honest: I do not want to be the only district in this county who can say that. So, I am issuing a challenge, and I mean it as a genuine invitation rather than a competition: Let's make Placer County the first county in California where every eligible school earns Purple Star Designation. I believe we can do it within two years. And RJUHSD will help. We will share our application materials, connect you with the Beale AFB School Liaison, walk your staff through what we learned, and sit alongside you through the process. The Auburn Journal, Lincoln News Messenger, Placer Herald, Press Tribune – the communities these newspapers serve all have military families in them. The Sunset Whitney families in Rocklin, the families near Twelve Bridges in Lincoln, the households throughout Loomis and Auburn who are quietly navigating a school system that was not designed with them in mind. We can change that. It does not take a lot of money. It takes intention. It takes a commitment. If you lead a school district in Placer County – as a superintendent, a board member, a principal – I am asking you to look into the Purple Star program today. If you're a parent, call your local school board and ask them to join us. The next application cycle opens this fall. That gives us a full spring and summer to prepare. Start with one school if that is where you are. We will take it from there together. Sarah's kids eventually found their footing, not because the system was designed to catch them but because a good people at their new schools made it their personal business to help. Imagine if the system itself was designed that way – if every front office had a designated liaison who knew exactly how to receive a military family, if every school had a web page Sarah could have found before she ever made that first phone call, if a student had been ready to show her kids around on day one instead of day 14. That is what a Purple Star school is. Let's build more of them – right here. Pete Constant is a Trustee on the Roseville Joint Union High School District Board of Trustees, Chair of the Department of Public Policy at Jessup University and a resident of Roseville.