QUANTICO, Va. — Teachers and students at Quantico will head back to class Tuesday without looming furlough days.
Quantico Middle High School has been spared the brunt of federal sequestration that had teachers eyeing mandatory furloughs of up to one day per week. Those furloughs would have kept students outside of the classroom.
Several other schools like Quantico, including a school at Dhalgren’s Naval Surface Warfare Center in Virginia, and DoD schools in 11 other states, have been spared the cutbacks. The Department of Defense’s Education Activity Office that oversees the schools did not respond to several requests for comment on this story.
Virginia Senator Mark Warner praised the decision to keep children in the classroom and teachers working.
“This is phenomenal news for military families, students and teachers at our base schools at Dahlgren and Quantico, who should not have to suffer because of Congress’ inability to get its fiscal act together,” said Warner in a press release. “Furloughing classroom teachers and shuttering entire schools right at the start of a new school year would have put unreasonable pressures on our military families, and imposed even more challenges on these educators. Our nation’s fiscal situation requires shared sacrifice, but our service members and our military families already bear the brunt of that sacrifice every day.”
Quantico Middle High School has just over 300 students enrolled on its campus. It made national headlines in 2011 when First Lady Michelle Obama came to the school as a commencement speaker for the graduating class.
