From left, Dr. Thomas Ellinger, DODDS Mediterranean superintendent, and Dr. Candace Ransing, DODDS-Europe deputy director, talk with Brig. Gen. Rusty Frutiger and IMA-Europe Director Russell Hall during a DODDS appreciation reception Friday at Patrick Henry Village in Heidelberg, Germany. (Arthur McQueen / U.S. Army)
They taught summer school, changed their plans and schedules for spring break and devised special programs for anxious kids with parents in Iraq and Afghanistan, some of whom never returned.
So it was only fitting, said Gen. B.B. Bell, commander of U.S. Army Europe, that the Department of Defense Dependents Schools teachers, principals and counselors within his command be honored for their service.
“Uniformly … you raised your hands quietly and said, ‘We will stand and deliver,’” Bell said in his remarks Friday at Patrick Henry Village’s pavilion.
Bell said he wanted to recognize the more than 3,000 DODDS educators who had shown dedication and flexibility in dealing with a student population whose parents were downrange.
From his command’s participation in the Iraq and Afghanistan campaigns, Bell said, 170 soldiers had been killed and more than 1,600 wounded; many of them had children who then also suffered.
“This is nothing normal,” Bell said in remarks to some 80 educators selected by school principals and superintendents to attend the reception. “And you all have gone so far in making it normal for our kids.”
Frank O’Gara, DODDS Europe spokesman, said school routines provide “perhaps the most important element of stability in the lives of kids,” especially for children whose lives have been disrupted by a parent’s deployment.
In some schools in the past couple of years, as many as 80 percent of students had a parent, usually a father, deployed, he said. Schools responded by giving teachers special training and starting up a number of programs to help kids stay in touch with deployed parents or to try to provide those kids extra attention from other adults and peers.
Bell lauded the teachers for agreeing to change spring break from April to March so it would coincide with the 1st Infantry Division’s return for Iraq — “You can’t imagine how that upsets the bureaucracy,” he said — and for staffing summer schools in areas with high deployments.
He also lauded DODDS’ top administrators for shifting funds after being hit with budget cuts just as the Iraq war began, sacrificing professional development funds for teachers to keep programs for children.
“They reacted to change and they did it from the top,” Bell said.
The educators appeared pleased, and somewhat astonished to be honored.
“This is the first time I’ve ever seen our educators recognized,” said Candace Ransing, DODDS Europe deputy director, when it was her turn at the microphone.
Likewise, Ora Flippen-Casper, Dexheim Elementary School principal, said she had no idea why she’d been selected to attend the event — or that once she got there her name would be called and she’d be handed a lovely scroll.
“This was a surprise to me,” she said.
