March 23, 2015
TO Superintendents
FROM Dr. Rebecca Garland
Mr. Doug Taggart
NC Troops to Teachers Program Coordinator/Military Liaison
Military Student Identifier
The Military Student Identifier, House Bill 1060, was approved by the General Assembly on June 19, 2014.
The act requires the State Board of Education to identify military-connected students using a uniform reporting system, otherwise known as PowerSchool.
The State Board of Education has developed a process for local school administrative units to annually identify enrolled military-connected students using PowerSchool.
The identification of military-connected children:
• Will not be used for the purposes of determining school achievement, growth, and performance scores.
• Is not public record and shall not be made public by any person.
• Charter schools are exempt from the mandatory collection, but may optionally use the military – connected interface if they are utilizing Power School.
Timeline:
This act becomes effective July 1, 2015. Local school administrative units shall begin the annual identification of military-connected students using PowerSchool beginning 2015-2016 school year. Local school administrative units may use the 2014-2015 school year, as an optional collection year.
Connection to Impact Aid
The US Department of Education provides financial grants to assist military–impacted local education agencies (LEAs) with the construction of schools and costs of public educational activities through the
Impact Aid program.
Impact Aid was designed to compensate local school districts that have lost property tax revenue due to the presence of tax-exempt federal property, including military installations, or that have experienced increased expenditures due to the enrollment of federally connected children, such as military and Indian students.
Impact Aid goes to local school districts, just like local property taxes, to hire teachers, purchase textbooks and computers, and pay for utilities.
OFFICE OF THE DEPUTY STATE SUPERINTENDENT
Rebecca Garland, Ed.D., Deputy State Superintendent | rebecca.garland@dpi.nc.gov
6368 Mail Service Center, Raleigh, North Carolina 27699-6368 | (919) 807-3200 | Fax (919) 807-3388
AN EQUAL OPPORTUNITY/AFFIRMATIVE ACTION EMPLOYER

If through the mandatory collection in SY2015, your system discovers that a minimum 3% or 400 students are federally connected (including by military service), it may be in your LEA’s interest to pursue federal impact aid funds (Section 8003) through their separate process.
Additional Information:
The Military Child Education Coalition or (MCEC) believes that there is no reliable data on the academic progress or educational development for military-connected students and has lobbied states to adopt such an identifier. Please visit their website for more information at http://www.militarychild.org/ .
The Department of Defense State Liaison Office or (DSLO) has a ninth priority to urge states to adopt an identifier for military children in education data systems.
Resources:
A training document for using the new interface in PowerSchool has been developed and is available at the following link: http://www.nc-sis.org/Documents/school_info/PS_QRD_Military.pdf
Some resources for supporting military children are available at DPI’s military support page at the following link: http://www.ncpublicschools.org/militarysupport/resources/