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Students, parents unite to stop calls from military recruiters

By Sarah Horner / Deluth News Tribune

When East High School senior Jamie Payne hit her junior year, she started getting mail from colleges and other post-secondary institutions urging her to consider them after graduation. One agency even started calling her at home: the military.

"They were absolutely friendly," Payne said about the recruiters. "But that didn't make it any less annoying."

It was especially irritating when the calls started coming every other month, some from military branches Payne had already told she wasn't interested in joining.

"It's kind of an invasion of privacy," Payne said. "I think we should have the choice if we want to have our contact information released."

Military recruiters probably got Payne's number from the Duluth school district under a provision in the federal No Child Left Behind law.

Since the law's implementation in January 2002, school districts across the nation are required to release the names, phone numbers and addresses of 11th- and 12th-grade students to any military branch that requests the information, according to U.S. Department of Education spokesman Jim Bradshaw.

Districts that don't comply risk losing federal money, Bradshaw said.

There is an exception. Parents can choose to sign an opt-out form that removes their child's name from the list. Students 18 and older also can sign the form.

"Anyone that signs that form is taken off the list," said Tom DeSutter, coordinator of the Duluth school district's Minnesota Automated Reporting Student System.

DeSutter is responsible for sending students' contact information to the military.

The problem is that some parents and students, like East High School junior Leigha Wallin, are unaware the district is required to release the list, much less that there is a way to get off it.

"I've never heard of it," Wallin said.

She said she doubted many of her peers knew about the provisions, either.

Every August, the district sends parents the opt-out form inside the back-to-school packet. This year the district also included information about the form in a back-to-school newsletter, said district Public Relations Director Katie Kauffman.

"If people are conscientious parents and reading what they get from the district, they should know about this,"DeSutter said.

But Julie O'Leary, president of Duluth's Parent Teacher Student Association Council, said she doesn't think it's that simple.

The packet that includes the form is full of a lot of procedural and policy information that some parents might just browse through, O'Leary said.

"I think all of us who get a lot of mail take a quick look at something, but if it doesn't seem relevant you toss it aside," she said.

Despite receiving the form in her packet for the past four years, O'Leary didn't learn of it until last year when Betsy Presley, a member of Duluth's Veterans for Peace, approached the PTSA to raise awareness about the military requirement.

"I was oblivious to it," she said.

TAKING ACTION

After learning more about the military provision and the opt-out form, the PTSA Council decided to do something to raise awareness.

"It's about the safety of our own children," said Rosie Loeffler-Kemp, acting president for the state PTSA and a member of the Duluth chapter. "Parents need to know this is a requirement under No Child Left Behind."

The first priority of the council was to push back the district's deadline for forms to be turned in -- which, until this year, was Oct. 1.

Council members were concerned the deadline wouldn't give them enough time to educate parents, Loeffler-Kemp said.

After initiating a conversation with DeSutter and Superintendent Keith Dixon, the district agreed to extend the deadline to Nov. 1, so far only for this year.

Kauffman said the district will consider making the change permanent.

"I actually was really pleased with the district's decision to give another month," O'Leary said. "I know that, generally, most parents either sign something or they don't, but this gives us a little more time to get the word out."

Kate Andrews, president of East's PTSA, didn't waste any time. She designed a new form and distributed it to parents at East's open house.

The PTSA is urging the district to consider making the opt-out choice easier to identify on the form. They also want it included in the high school's packet rather than the district's, because more high school parents are likely to see it, Loeffler-Kemp said.

Other community groups, such as Veterans for Peace and Truth in Recruiting, are involved in the issue.

Presley said Central, East and Denfeld high schools allowed her to set up tables in the schools to distribute forms to students. All three schools agreed to keep forms in their guidance offices.

Joel Kilgour, a member of Truth In Recruiting, said members of his group approached the district with suggestions to increase awareness about the form last year, such as posting it online, printing the form on colored paper and talking to students about it in home room.

So far the district has agreed only to push back the deadline to submit the form and print it on colored paper.

"I think these are all things we will continue to discuss," Kauffman said.

IT'S ABOUT CHOICE

Some students, such as East senior Kenny Cowen, have no objection to military recruiters calling them at home.

Cowen actually called them.

"I want to enlist in the Marines," he said.

Even if he didn't, Cowen said he doesn't understand why anyone would be bothered by the phone calls.

"All you have to do is say no," he said.

But East senior Aubry Skorich wanted to avoid the conversation altogether.

"I knew I wanted to go to a private college and didn't really need military assistance," Skorich said.

She signed the opt-out form this year.

It's about choice, Presley said.

"The basic principle is the protection of privacy," she said. "Some students might welcome the calls, but others are grateful to find out it's possible to keep their name and information private."

Privacy is especially welcome in the face of repeated phone calls, a reality Presley said many parents and students have experienced from military recruiters.

Loeffler-Kemp can attest to that.

She said her 17-year-old daughter received calls from several military branches last summer, and some kept calling.

"I intercepted the call and asked them not to call back," Loeffler-Kemp said. "We got two more calls from the same branch of service that week."

1st Sgt. Martin Brill, of the Army recruiting office in Duluth, said his branch doesn't use that tactic.

Only about 20 percent of his office's recruiting is done by phone, he said, adding that other branches might rely more heavily on phone recruiting.

His branch primarily uses contact information to determine how many recruiters to send to high schools for classroom presentations and career fairs, he said.

"The bulk of the kids we talk to are in the schools," Brill said. "If someone seems interested, we make a note of that and maybe give them a call."

It's not the calls that concern University of Wisconsin-Superior senior Opal Mattila.

She almost enlisted in the Air Force a few years ago.

"It honestly never occurred to me that I was signing up for something that could get me killed," she said. "It wasn't talked about in the recruitment process at all."

In retrospect, though, Mattila doesn't know if honest talk about the risks would have made much difference at the time.

"You don't really think about your mortality when you're 19; that's what makes it an easier sell for recruiters," she said.

That is the piece that is concerning for Brad Johnson, another member of Duluth's Veterans for Peace.

He said too often military recruiters neglect to mention the risks associated with enlistment.

"When a kid looks down the road it is hard to see past the person in a bright, shiny uniform guaranteeing school, adventure and income," Johnson said. "As good as those options are, there are also serious drawbacks, like dying in combat, killing another or being injured."

Brill said recruiters from his office address those risks with students.

"But I also tell them that the risk they face in the United States Army is less than the one they face in civilian life," Brill said. "More people die in a three-month span of time in the Twin Cities and surrounding areas from rape, shootings and car accidents than have died in Iraq and Afghanistan the whole time we've been there."

Brill said he wasn't sure where he heard that statistic but thought it came from a study conducted sometime in 2004 or 2005.