Author name: Common Defense

Military families already shoulder frequent moves, disrupted routines, and new assignments.

A Government Accountability Office review now finds that children with learning disabilities can face another burden when Department of War Education Activity schools fail to identify their needs quickly or deliver consistent support.

Parents repeatedly told investigators that educational records and individualized education programs do not always transfer smoothly during a permanent change of station.

Those breakdowns can delay services and force educators at the receiving school to reconstruct what a child needs.

The GAO identified gaps throughout the process, including screening, referrals, evaluations, classroom instruction, teacher preparation, and access to student data. Jennifer Gregory, a GAO assistant director, warned, “Those are gaps that, when you add them up, they multiply, and they have a compounding effect on when and the quality of services that students receive.”

About 5 percent of the roughly 60,000 full time students enrolled in DoW schools had an identified specific learning disability during the 2024 to 2025 school year.

The number identified rose 29 percent from the 2018 to 2019 school year, while roughly 10 percent of students received short term strategic instruction in small groups.

Specific learning disabilities include dyslexia, which can affect language comprehension, and dyscalculia, which can interfere with mathematical calculations.

Early and accurate identification matters, especially for military children who may change schools repeatedly while their parents serve the nation.

Investigators examined schools across five of the system’s nine districts, representing 63 percent of students with identified specific learning disabilities.

GAO personnel visited 11 schools, conducted 47 group interviews with educators and administrators, and offered an online questionnaire to parents.

Among responding parents, 82 of 121 said limited access to assessment resources, including effective screening tools, was a challenge.

Staff at nine of the 11 schools also said they needed more or better tools for identifying children who required additional literacy, mathematics, or special education support.

Existing screening tools did not directly measure foundational phonics skills among elementary students and were not available to every child.

In a highly mobile school population, that is not a minor paperwork hiccup because missed warning signs can follow a student from installation to installation.

DoW education officials told GAO in July that universal screening tools for every grade had been procured and were expected to be administered beginning in late 2026.

That planned improvement is welcome, but families dealing with unmet needs today should not have to wait while the education bureaucracy catches up.

The GAO also found that the school system could not guarantee that every student identified as needing additional literacy or mathematics assistance actually received it.

At high schools, some help is offered through strategic instruction classes treated as electives, meaning students can be identified for support without necessarily getting it.

“Once it is determined that a kiddo does need support, there is not a way right now that DODEA can ensure that kids who have been identified for this kind of support actually get it,” said Jacqueline Nowicki, the GAO director overseeing its kindergarten through grade 12 education work.

Identification without action is little comfort to a military parent watching a child fall further behind.

Problems also extended to referrals, evaluations, and teacher preparation.

At all 11 schools visited, staff reported obstacles such as limited access to student information and professional learning that did not match their assigned responsibilities.

Of 44 strategic instruction and special education teachers interviewed, 32 rated their professional learning opportunities as “bad” or “very bad.”

Teachers were routinely asked to evaluate training already completed, yet many did not understand how to request the training they actually needed for future instruction.

The review further found that some teachers lacked the preparation required to use specialized reading interventions properly.

When educators are handed a program without the practical training to execute it, students become the ones paying for Washington’s familiar habit of confusing a policy memo with a finished mission.

Although GAO did not formally audit the transfer of individualized education programs during this particular review, the problem has repeatedly emerged in its broader work.

Parents said records sometimes never reached the new school, while others carried documents themselves but could not determine who was responsible for receiving them.

“It is not uncommon for parents to tell us, you know, I transferred to DODEA School from ABC Public School. My files didn’t show up,” Nowicki said.

“Or my files I brought them with me and hand carried them and didn’t know who or couldn’t find who to give them to.”

School liaison officers can coordinate “warm handoffs” between departing and receiving schools, but not every school has one and some parents do not know the assistance exists.

The GAO issued eight recommendations covering screening, referrals, evaluation delays, teacher training, student data, and guaranteed academic support, leaving the War Department with a clear mission to fix the gaps and put military children first.