COMMUNITY ACTION

What Can You Do About Excessive Military Recruiter Access in Your Schools?

Kathy Barker of Washington Truth in Recruiting
Kathy Barker of Washington Truth in Recruiting

The National Network Opposing the Militarization of Youth (NNOMY) realizes we need to speak to those individual citizens who respond to our public appeals for participation in school demilitarization campaigns but are not aligned to a peace group.

The information below bridges your concerns and our experience.

 

Who we are

The type of activism called Truth in Recruiting or Counter-recruitment grew out of the anti-draft movement with a realization that there was a need to challenge the so called voluntary military as the Pentagon began an aggressive and manipulative multi-tiered campaign of recruiting America's youth and to oppose a corporatization and privatization of our nation’s schools.

What does NNOMY do?

We assist organizations and individuals to reclaim our schools for learning and not for Military Recruiting.

What can you do to show your concern or objection to excessive military recruiter access in a public school?

You don't have to be an organization to publicly address your concerns with your school or school district. Changing policies to protect student privacy from military recruiters requires community and individual actions.

We welcome you to participate in NNOMY campaigns and we offer resources and assistance according to the time you have, and the commitment you feel. If you want to make an impact you need to share your concerns of the dangers of promoting military culture and veiled and direct military recruitment in our public schools. Here are some actions you can make to address the need for school demilitarization.

You Can:

  • Share this page with your networks that are concerned about increasing school militarization (See share links below)

  • Establish a "Recruitment Observatory" at your public school to keep track of how many of students are being contacted and what they are being told by military recruiters. School officials can be influenced to moderate recruiter access if the community speaks up and follow recommended policies established under the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) of the U.S. Department of Education.

  • If military recruiters are going beyond career fairs and are roaming your public school hallways and cafeterias, or substituting for regular physical education teachers, you can say enough. Start by writing a letter to your school principal that this is not acceptable and follow it up with a letter to your school board as well. Find out how others have prevailed to reign in military recruiters in their communities.

  • Did you know that the military is likely conducting testing in your public school under the cover of career placement? It is actually data mining student information for a recruiters contact data base and your not being told about it. Send an Email to Your School Officials says the National Coalition to Protect Student Privacy (ASVAB testing and DOD student Data mining)

  • One of the most important things we can do is to inform young people fully about what is really at stake in joining the military. Distributing Winning The Peace Palm Cards in front at your local high schools can accomplish answering important questions students should have the answers to directly on their smart phones that they will not get from military recruiters making their enlistment quotas. Our youth deserve an informed decision to join the military or not. Read below to find out more about the Winning the Peace Campaign:

 

 

Other things you can do. You can talk to:

You can find a group near you...

You can join other people doing similar things:

You can inform yourself...

  1. Policy Guidance - Access to High School Students and Information on Students by Military Recruiters
  2. Military Recruitment on High School and College Campuses: A Policy and Legal Analysis - Congressional Research Service | PDF
  3. Ninth Circuit Court Ruling: Confronting Militarism by Using EQUAL ACCESS to High Schools
  4. Career Counselors and Military Recruiting in High Schools | PDF
  5. ‘Parents for a Say’ initiative, Elgin Illinois

You can organize as an activist:

In any Decision you Make to Assist...

...NNOMY is here to assist you. Contact us at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or call (760) 634-3604. If no one is available to take your call, leave a message, a contact number, a best time to reach you, and a staff person will get back to you.

 

Revised 02/19/2017

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Community Action

College Not CombatCounter recruitment work involves many segments of the community, representing activists from religious groups, ethically motivated veterans whom have seen the dangers and contradictions of illegal wars, parents who are seeking a better future for their children and students working to de-militarize their schools. NNOMY has established the COMMUNITY ACTION PAGE as a starting point for helping potential activists decide which category best describes themselves and assembling the appropriate resources to get started planning how  to organize your work as a group or individual.

Here are some recommended links available to better inform you as a community activist. This is a work in progress and NNOMY will be adding new documents as they are prepared and as policies change that effect enlistment. Check back periodically.

Resource Pages:

  • The National Network Opposing the Militarization of Youth 2014 Back-to-school Kit for Counter-recruitment and School Demilitarization Organizing is now available to assist you in understanding the work, your rights, and the challenges to return to the public schools to counter-recruit. Please visit this page and review the materials we have assembled for you and feel free to ask questions as well at Our Contact Page and we will do our best to answer you or your group in a timely manner.
  • For Parents
  • For Students
  • For Teachers
  • For Enlisted Personnel

Principle Issues and materials to inform you as an activist:

Articles:

Downloads:

Organizations you should know:

Articles on the web:

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 Revised 07/02/2020

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This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of issues connected with militarism and resistance. We believe this constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use’, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

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Your donation to NNOMY works to balance the military's message in our public schools. Our national network of activists go into schools and inform youth considering military service the risks about military service that recruiters leave out.

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