Military readiness is much more than the effective training of forces for deployment. As one community in central Missouri demonstrates, it includes ensuring that military-connected children have an excellent public school experience, giving their parents peace of mind that a career in the military doesn’t have to mean sacrificing a child’s education.
One of the main attractions for families surrounding Whiteman Air Force Base in central Missouri is the public school system, which has managed to provide its students with a level of quality and consistency that is often hard to attain for nomadic families of the U.S. military.
Knob Noster Public Schools serve more than 1,700 students, 70 percent of whom have parents assigned to Whiteman, proud home to the B-2 stealth bomber fleet. The base is soon to make way for the Air Force’s newest stealth bomber – the B-21 Raider fleet.
The gravity of what that base means is not lost on Jarrod Wheeler, Knob Noster’s school superintendent—not the critical nature of the mission, the technology it brings and the stress it places on the pilots, base personnel and especially their families.
“Our servicemembers and families at Whiteman put their lives on the line and sacrifice so much each day for our national defense,” he said. “Their kids’ education shouldn’t have to sacrifice as well.”
Military-connected kids face unique challenges
“You face different challenges from most kids your age,” First Lady Jill Biden told the children there back in in 2022, “challenges that the adults in your life can’t shield you from, no matter how hard we try.”
At the top of the list of those challenges, next to the concerns that go along with having a parent in the military, is the difficulty maintaining quality education for a child who may move six to nine times before they finish high school.
Most of the nation’s estimated 1.1 million military-connected students attend public schools near military installations. As a result, they are exposed to the inconsistencies of U.S. education far more than their civilian counterparts. The education of military children can suffer as students are regularly put at a disadvantage of being either ahead of or behind their peers.
But for military families at Whiteman, the area schools are especially adept at keeping children on track and excelling. A powerful example of the district’s vision and commitment to military-connected children is a new 600-student polytechnic-focused high school now under construction.
New STEM high school for Air Force families
Less than a month after the Air Force announced that Whiteman would be one of three hubs for the B-21 fleet, the district broke ground on a school whose curriculum will be STEM-heavy. The base will house the world’s most advanced bomber aircraft while the high school right down the road will, hopefully, spur young minds to explore the limits of science and beyond. That is a poetic justice.
In addition to a solid education, the new school will provide expanded free preschool offerings for military families and employment opportunities for military spouses. The district is one of the top employers for military spouses in the region and continues to champion license reciprocity for service member families.
When it opens its doors in August 2026, the school will be augmented through a grantmaking partnership with DODEA, the Department of Defense Education Authority. DoDEA schools are separate and are managed by the Department of Defense. They educate approximately 65,000 military-connected children. But with so many more military kids attending public schools, DoDEA has an added responsibility of providing grants to school districts like Knob Noster where those military kids are educated, so the grants help all students – whether military or not.
Even before the groundbreaking, the school district was an exemplar of what can be achieved for military kids with close coordination between a military service and school district leaders. The last several years have brought numerous accolades.
- For several years running, the Knob Noster High School was recognized as Missouri’s No. 1 rural high school for college and career readiness by U.S. News and World Report.
- The school district received the prestigious Gen. Pete Taylor National Partnership of Excellence Award for its strong partnership with Whiteman and affiliate organizations. The award is conferred by the Military Child Education Coalition, an independent organization that works to improve education quality for military-connected kids.
- An Air Force study on the quality of education for servicemember families ranked Knob Noster No. 1 in the U.S. out of 157 installations.
School district and USAF base have a close relationship
A top reason for Knob Noster’s academic success is a focus on improving STEM education and linking the courses to real-world needs. The school district applied for and won nearly $10 million in Department of Defense-sponsored grants, all of which have dramatically expanded Advanced Placement courses, STEM2 (which stresses a focus on medicine), leadership, cybersecurity and virtual course offerings for students.
In one example of the close partnership between the district and the base, base leaders asked the local high school’s robotics team to work with pilots and engineers to design and test a 3D-printed prototype switch cover for the cockpit of the B-2 stealth bomber. After perfecting the prototype, the students printed switch covers for the entire B-2 fleet and simulators.
The U.S. military leaderships has worried for years over school quality and its impact on readiness and retention. In 2019, the Air Force’s then-top officer, Gen. David Goldfein, the chief of staff, stressed the point to local leaders concerned about the viability of their bases. “As I visit installations, the number one quality of life issue of airmen with children is access to good schools,” he told a gathering in Washington, DC.
For Wheeler, he said his district is doing its part to give Air Force families a superb education when assigned to Whiteman. “While our servicemembers are around the globe taking care of our nation’s business, we provide peace of mind that their children are in good hands, receiving a great education back home.”
