COUNTERING MILITARY RECRUITMENT
Articles: Military Recruiting: Student Privacy
Portland school officials may curb military recruiting
BETH QUIMBY, Blethen Maine News
November 30, 2005
An open-door policy that gives military recruiters almost unlimited access to students in the hallways of Maine's largest school district may soon swing shut.The Portland School Committee next week will consider a proposal to limit to seven the number of annual visits military and college recruiters can make to the city's high schools. The policy would also create designated areas within each school where recruiting can take place.
The policy, if approved, apparently would be the first of its kind at a Maine public school. It comes as school districts nationwide are debating limits on military recruitment.
Steven Spring, a School Committee member who heads the panel that developed the proposed policy, said the policy is intended to protect student privacy, and "does not restrict any past practice" of college recruiters.
Military recruiters interviewed Tuesday had not heard of the proposed policy, but said they already abide by limits when it comes to recruiting in schools. Staff Sgt. Kenneth Tinnin of the U.S. Marine Corps Recruiting Station in Portsmouth, N.H., said recruiters appear at high schools about once a month.
"Although high school visits are an important way for recruiters to contact prospective applicants and inform them on the opportunities in the Marine Corps, they are not the only way recruiters can inform prospective applicants," he wrote in an e-mail.
Portland's proposal -- called the "Equitable Recruitment Access Policy" -- follows more than two years of discussions about limiting military recruitment at Portland schools.
Spring, who spearheaded the effort with fellow committee member Ben Meiklejohn, said the decision to limit recruiters to seven visits was based in part on past practices and could be revised by the committee next week.
Guidance counselors told the subcommittee studying the issue that most colleges visit the high schools about three times a year and military recruiters more often, he said.
Last year military recruiters visited Deering High School 18 times and Portland High School 28 times.
The federal No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 requires any school district that receives federal money to give student contact information to military and college recruiters, unless students opt out.
Nationally, military recruiters' access to students is a hot issue. Anti-war activists in some states have handed out forms to help students remove themselves from recruiting lists. Other school districts, such as Seattle, ban recruiters from giving students misleading information and give equal access to organizations that promote alternatives to the military.
The American Civil Liberties Union in Massachusetts, Rhode Island and New York sent out letters this fall to every high school principal in those states with advice on how to interpret the military recruitment provision. Students and parents in Portland appear to come down on both sides of the debate over restricting recruiters.
Joshua Waxman, a 17- year-old Portland High School junior and student representative to the School Committee, said he will vote in favor of limiting visits by recruiters.
He said he often sees recruiters in the hallways and they approach students as they walk by the tables.
"I don't agree with military recruitment in schools," Waxman said. Other Portland High students said they welcome recruiters anytime at their school. "It does not bother me," said Matthew Mulkern, a 15-year-old sophomore.
Dennis Gervais, father of a Deering High School senior, said high school students need all the information they can get to make decisions about their futures. He said limiting visits by military or college recruiters would limit a student's ability to become informed.
"I don't have problems with recruiters as long as it is done in an above-board manner and there is no manipulation," he said.
Limiting the number of visits by recruiters at Portland high schools is the latest move by the School Committee to address the military recruitment issue. To make it easier for students to opt out of being contacted by recruiters, the committee this year included the option on the emergency notification card that must be filled out for each student.
At Portland High School, 65 percent of the school's 1,111 students opted out.
At Deering, where the cards were passed out to the school's 630 juniors and seniors, 52 percent chose to keep their contact information private. Last year only 2 percent opted out, school officials said.
In Bethel, officials at Telstar High School took a similar approach.
Last year, when information was printed on the back of another form, 37 percent chose to keep their information private. This year the information was moved to a more prominent spot and 49 percent opted out.
The Maine Civil Liberties Union and the Veterans for Peace plan to write to every school district in the state, urging them to adopt Portland's emergency notification card policy, said MCLU director Shenna Bellows.
Meanwhile, state Rep. David Farrington, D-Gorham, has proposed a bill to require school districts to be more "proactive" when notifying parents of the opt-out provision.
Michael O'Connor, a spokesman for the 319th Recruiting Squadron of the U.S. Air Force based in Portsmouth, N.H., said the reception given Air Force recruiters at high schools in the region varies from icy to welcoming.
"Some schools are only allowing access at the bare minimum ... Others let recruiters in at least once a month, " he said.
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