When service members with children pick their next duty station, “education is really the number one thing in terms of coming to Fort Leonard Wood,” says Dr. Brian Henry, superintendent of the Waynesville RVI School District in Missouri.
“We need to offer attractive facilities, top-notch education, and advanced coursework where soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines realize you can come to Mid Missouri and take any AP course that you could take in Virginia. To do all that, we just have to work together.”
Henry has made working together with the community and the installation a hallmark of his eight years with the district. He spent three of those years as chair of the Sustainable Ozarks Partnership, the support organization for Fort Leonard Wood.
The school district, with its Tiger mascot, has 11 schools, and 75% of its students are military-connected.
Early into his tenure, Henry teamed up with the community on a tough proposition: convincing the community to pass a 20-cent tax levy increase, the first in about 60 years. The increase was needed to maintain the district’s eligibility for B-2 Heavily Impacted Aid from the Department of Defense Education Activity.
“I knew it was going to be a heavy lift,” Henry says. “I knew it was going to take a great deal of communication. I knew that it was going to take quite a bit of partnership with the community.”
The Sustainable Ozarks Partnership, the business community and local elected leaders came together to educate the public on the investment’s return. Voters approved the increase, which Henry says “has been vital for our community the last several years.”
Henry also successfully competed for a Defense Community Infrastructure Project grant that is helping remodel a local arts center to expand its pre-school offerings, reducing a wait list for military and civilian families.
Henry knows that when he retires in July, the partnership will continue, because it is ingrained in the relationship.
“It’s a kinship we have with the installation and the community, and our schools are part of it.”
Or, as the district’s tagline puts it, the area’s schools are “Where the Orange and Black Unite with the Red, White and Blue.”
Part of a series honoring ADC’s Defense Community Champions
ADC photo by Will Noonan
