Slippery Rock Area is considering bringing the Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps to the district after more than 100 high school students attended a meeting held to gauge interest in the program.

Schools typically offer JROTC programs so students can learn leadership skills, understand what it means to be a citizen of the United States and to focus on personal responsibility. It’s the kind of program that can offer high school students a rare opportunity to gain maturity and learn to exist within a highly structured environment before they graduate and have to learn these things through life lessons — and as we all know, those lessons can be somewhat bumpier.

Butler Area School District already features a JROTC program and Karns City has expressed interest in sending students to participate with the Butler unit. Seneca Valley also has a JROTC program, but there aren’t as many as there used to be in area districts. In the JROTC Second Brigade, which encompasses Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Vermont, there are a little more than 17,000 cadets in 121 JROTC programs.

According to the United States Code, the purpose of JROTC is “to instill in students in (the United States) secondary educational institutions the values of citizenship, service to the United States and personal responsibility and a sense of accomplishment.”

Student board representative Stefon Austin said he thinks the program would give students structure and would teach them to be better leaders while bringing “us the unity that we need.”

Another option discussed by the Slippery Rock board was the National Defense Cadet Corps, which is also a part of the U.S. Army. Like JROTC, the Army NDCC was founded following the National Defense Act of 1916. The programs are very similar, with one key difference — NDCC programs are paid for entirely by the school district while JROTC programs are funded federally. There are nine NDCC programs in Pennsylvania, all in the central or eastern portions of the state.

It’s really a matter of what program will work best for Slippery Rock as a district, both will provide the skills and lessons students expect to receive in such organizations.

Slippery Rock is in the unique position of having more than 100 students who are already interested and nearby districts that might be interested in sending their students to join in as well.

This is a great spot to be in — a student body that is demonstrating an interest in leadership and personal responsibility during a time when it seems like so many in this country could use the same lessons. What a great opportunity to set these students up for success in a time-tested way, with proven pathways established for accomplishment.

— KL