Phoenixville fights to save Air Force JROTC program
High school program to be closed at end of school year
Usually, it’s bad advice to pick a fight with someone who has fighter jets and nuclear warheads, but the Phoenixville Area School District is undeterred.
Specifically, the school district and about 62 students and their parents are fighting a decision by the U.S. Air Force to deactivate the Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps unit that has been at the high school since 2015.
The Air Force notified Superintendent Missy McTiernan in November that the unit would be deactivated at the end of the current school year due to the unit’s failure to maintain a minimum enrollment of 10 percent of
the school population or 100 students, whichever is less. Phoenixville High School has more than 1,250 students.
In a March 4 letter to Pennsylvania’s two senators, Bob Casey and John Fetterman, both Democrats; along with U.S. Rep.Chrissy
Houlahan, D-6th Dist., the Phoenixville School Board called that minimum enrollment “an unreasonably high minimum, particularly for small and medium-sized schools, that would require it to be among the largest extracurricular activities in the school.”
A call to Air Force headquarters Wednesday was not returned before press time.
“While we recognize that JROTC programs are not recruiting programs and do not obligate students to any future military service, students who join the unit are likely interested in serving our country in some way. At a time when our nation faces a decline in many forms of national service and our military’s recruitment chiefs warn we are in a “recruiting crisis,” we should be doing everything possible to promote public service and open, not close, doors for students who show interest in learning about leadership and the core values