This resource gives you details about situations covered by the Interstate Compact on Educational Opportunity for Military Children. Use it to help you decide if you can apply the Compact to resolve a school issue for your child. Then you can follow the Step-by-Step checklist to use the Compact for your child’s situation.
Transferring records, enrollment, immunizations
The Compact allows military parents to hand-carry “unofficial” (temporary) school records from the sending school to give to the receiving school:
- Unofficial records need to include attendance records, academic information, and grade placement (part of the basic documents package)
- The sending school can charge you a reasonable fee for making the copies.
- The receiving school must use the unofficial records for your child’s enrollment.
- It’s the receiving school’s responsibility to immediately ask for an official set of records (transcript) from the sending school. The sending school must send out the official records within 10 days.
- Immunizations (shots to protect against certain diseases): If your child hasn’t already had the shots the receiving school requires, you have 30 days to get the shots after the date of enrollment.
- If your child needs a series of shots to be immunized, he or she must get the first shot in the series within the 30 days.
Kindergarten or First Grade Starting Ages
If your child was enrolled and already attending Kindergarten in her old school, the new school must let her go to Kindergarten even if the age requirement is different.
- If your child should be starting first grade, the Compact says that if your child completed the previous grade in the sending school (including Kindergarten) they can enroll in the next grade at the receiving school, even if the age requirements are different.
- If you are enrolling your child during the school year, they can enter the school in the grade they were in at the sending school.
Additional information to give to the school:
- Make sure the letter or transcript from the sending school shows your child’s attendance in Kindergarten, if the issue is about Kindergarten eligibility.
Special Education, Accommodations and Modifications
The Compact says that the receiving school shall follow the laws that apply to students getting special education services or students that have accommodations and modifications. These are federal laws that apply to every State and in Washington, DC.
This means that the receiving school follows your child’s current IEP, Section 504 or ADA Title II Plan. For an IEP, comparable (similar) services and supports are provided; for Section 504 or ADA Title II plans, reasonable accommodations or modifications are made to provide your child with equal access to education. In either case, the receiving school can evaluate your child later to see if their IEP, 504 or Title II Plan is still an appropriate placement for your child.
Additional information to give the school:
- If your child has an Individualized Education Program (IEP), or a Section 504 or ADA Title II plan, keep paper copies of the plan or program, service agreements, evaluations and progress reports. Keep records from non-school sources as well. Give them to the receiving school with the other school records.
Repeating courses
Under the Compact, receiving schools have flexibility to waive (not apply to your child) requirements for specific classes or courses needed for placement in the receiving school’s courses or programs.
Additional information to give the school:
- Show that the class or classes your child took at the sending school cover the same, or very similar material as the one the receiving school wants them to take.
Example: The receiving school requires a Civics class in 7th grade. Your child took a class called “Federal, State and Local Government” in 6th grade at the sending school. Your child’s academic records should show that he or she took the 6th grade class. If more information is needed, the sending school could send information about the class to the receiving school about what material was covered in the 6th grade course.
You could contact the sending school directly or ask your School Liaison for help.
Getting the right program or course placement
Either School Liaisons or Parent Centers may be able to help you with this issue.
- Under the Compact, after enrollment, the receiving school must place your child in the appropriate courses or programs based on the courses and programs they were in at the sending school.
- If the receiving school doesn’t have such a course or program, but another school in the same District does, the receiving school can let your child attend classes or programs where they are available.
- The receiving school can evaluate your child later to see if they are eligible for the receiving school’s classes or programs, under the receiving school’s rules about eligibility.
Graduation Requirements (also see “Repeating Courses”)
- The Compact says the receiving school shall waive (not apply to your child) specific courses needed for graduation if your child has satisfactorily completed similar coursework in another school district. If the receiving school doesn’t waive the requirement, they must give a “reasonable justification for denial”.
Additional information to give the school:
- Show that the class or classes your child took at the sending school cover the same, or very similar material as the one the receiving school wants them to take.
Example: The receiving school requires three mathematics classes for graduation. At the sending school your child passed courses in Algebra, Geometry, and Everyday Math. The receiving school doesn’t offer Everyday Math but does offer a course called Applied Mathematics. Provide a comparison of the course descriptions from both the sending and receiving schools to show that your child has taken equivalent coursework. If more information is needed, the sending school could send information about the class to the receiving school about what material was covered.
You could contact the sending school directly or ask your School Liaison for help.
- If your child already qualified to graduate from the sending school (all required coursework completed satisfactorily), and the receiving school does NOT waive their own required coursework, the receiving school must give him or her an “alternative means” of getting the required coursework so your child can graduate on time.
- If your child transfers to the receiving school at the beginning of or during his or her Senior year, and even after all alternatives have been looked at, your child is still not eligible to graduate from the receiving school; then, if he or she is eligible to graduate from the sending school, the receiving school and sending school shall make sure your child gets a diploma from the sending school.
- “Exit” exams: the receiving state shall accept exams from the sending state that are required for graduation. These include end-of-course exams, national norm-referenced achievement tests, and alternative testing, in place of testing requirements for graduation in the sending state.
If your child is transferring to the receiving school in his or her senior year, and the receiving school can’t accept the exams from the sending school, then the receiving school must arrange for your child to get their diploma from the sending school.
Extra-curricular Activities
- States and local schools can be flexible so military children can be in sports and extracurricular activities, even if the child can’t meet an application deadline.
- Your child will still have to meet the eligibility standards for the activity, such as tryouts for sports or a music program.
Deployment
- Under the Compact, schools can allow excused absences for a child whose military parent is called to duty for, is on leave from, or just returned from deployment to a combat zone or combat support posting.
- It’s entirely up to the school administration whether to allow this or not
- The school can limit the number or length of the excused absences to make sure your child doesn’t miss too much school.
Your child is or will be living with another family member, non-custodial parent, or guardian (Family Care Plan)
Under the Compact, a military child can keep going to the school in the school or district they have been attending, even if the person they are living with is in a different school district.
- The school district can’t charge local tuition under these circumstances
- The person taking care of your child is responsible for transportation (not the school or district).
Additional information to give the school:
- Copy of your Family Care Plan, and if necessary, any special Powers of Attorney or custody orders, if not given to the school earlier.
