Students, from left, Taylor, 17, Troy, 14, and Tamsen, 12, (last name withheld) pose with principal Amy Smith at Becker Middle School Thursday, May 6, 2021. The school received a Purple Star award from the Nevada Department of Education for supporting military families. Taylor is a former Becker Middle School student.
Monday, May 10, 2021 | 2 a.m.
By the time Taylor entered seventh grade at Becker Middle School, she had already attended five other schools. The daughter of an Air Force member, she switched schools every time her father was transferred to a new base.
“It’s hard, but it’s the only thing I’ve ever known,” she said.
Becker was the biggest school she had attended — it has some 1,280 students — but everyone was welcoming, and a counselor introduced her to another student from a military family.
“When I first started, my dad was deployed and the teachers were nice; they all asked how I was doing,” said Taylor, now a junior at Faith Lutheran High School.
Last month, Becker was recognized for its outreach to students of military families by being the first in Nevada designated a Purple Star School.
The Nevada Department of Education adopted the Purple Star program this year, also awarding Robert O. Gibson Leadership Academy in Las Vegas the designation.
The schools provide social and emotional support to students whose parents are in the armed forces.
“Our military service members and their families contribute to our community in so many ways, and we look forward to identifying additional schools that excel in providing them with the support they need and deserve,” Jhone Ebert, state superintendent of public instruction, said in a statement.
The child of an active-duty military member can expect to switch schools six to nine times between kindergarten and high school, according to the Military Child Education Coalition.
Taylor’s father has been deployed to the Middle East nine times and the family has moved at least three.
“When you get an assignment and you have a family, your immediate thought is, what do the schools look like?” said her mother, Megan Galli.
Her 14- and 12-year-old currently attend Becker, which is more than 20 minutes away from Nellis Air Force Base, where the family lives.
“It’s worth every mile. As a parent who gets to see quite a few classrooms, it was such a blessing to find Becker,” Galli said.
She enrolled Taylor at Becker after a friend recommended it.
The school was flexible about course placement and considered her daughter’s past experience, placing her in appropriate classes in which the curriculum she already learned wouldn’t overlap, she said. Taylor was immediately placed in an advanced class for violin, which she has been studying since elementary school.
“It was really nice because I didn’t have to start over. A lot of kids have to start over,” Taylor, 17, said.
Purple Star School programs are established by state legislatures or education departments. All public, private and charter schools are eligible to participate.
To achieve Purple Star status, schools must have a specially trained and designated point-of-contact for military families, among other requirements.
“When I saw the application, I said, ‘This is everything we already do,’ ” said Becker Principal Amy Herring Smith.
The school has a counselor at every grade level and open enrollment, which allows students outside its designated zone.
Open enrollment is helpful to military families because many live at or near Nellis and Creech Air Force bases, Herring Smith said. Of Becker’s 1,280 students, 37 are children of active-duty military members and 89 are children of veterans.
Herring Smith said she was grateful Becker was recognized with the Purple Star designation because it helps the school stand out to military families.
“The Purple Star designation will hopefully have them select us,” she said.
