ExpandDETROIT — On her first day of high school, Andreya Thomas looked over her schedule and found that she was enrolled in a class with an unfamiliar name: JROTC.
In Chicago, concerns raised by activists, news coverage and an inspector general’s report led the school district to backtrack this year on automatic JROTC enrollments at several high schools that serve primarily lower-income neighborhoods on the city’s South and West sides. In other places, the Times found, the practice continues, with students and parents sometimes rebuffed when they fight compulsory enrollment.
High school principals who have embraced the program say it motivates students who are struggling, teaches self-discipline to disruptive students and provides those who may feel isolated with a sense of camaraderie. It has found a welcome home in rural areas where the military has deep roots but also in urban centers where educators want to divert students away from drugs or violence and toward what for many can be a promising career or a college scholarship.
But she expressed concern about the Times’ findings on enrollment policies, saying that the military does not ask high schools to make JROTC mandatory and that schools should not be requiring students to take it.Across the country Mejia, whose daughter was put against her will into a class in Fort Myers, met with a series of school officials while trying to get his daughter out. He said he supported the military — his sister is in the Navy — but was outraged that his daughter was being forced into the program.
On the other hand, the Times’ review found a number of high schools where at least three-quarters of a grade’s students were enrolled in JROTC, including in Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Cape Coral, Florida; Charlotte, North Carolina; Memphis, Tennessee; Port Gibson, Mississippi; San Diego; Spring, Texas; and Vincent, Alabama.
Three other Detroit high schools also enrolled more than 75% of their freshmen in the class, according to district data. The principal of McKinley Technology High School in Washington said students were automatically enrolled in the class so that they could learn leadership and discipline, though some did not take the course because of religious beliefs or opposition to the military.