Op-Eds & Opinion

A challenge to every school district in Placer County

As published in Gold Country Media · April 30, 2026

Let’s be the first county in California where every school earns the Purple Star.

By Pete Constant · Guest Editorial

I want to tell you about a mother I’ll call Sarah.

Her husband was deployed unexpectedly — orders came fast, the way they always do — and within days she was alone with three children, ranging from second grade to eighth, living off base in Placer County. She was new to the area. She didn’t know the district boundaries. She didn’t know which schools her kids were zoned for, or whether they were even in the same district. She didn’t know who to call, what paperwork to bring, or whether the credits her oldest had earned at their last school would transfer cleanly.

So, she started calling. She got voicemail. She got transferred. She got conflicting information from two different front offices about what documents she needed. She drove to three separate schools in a single day — two different districts, different enrollment processes, different staff who had no common system for receiving a military family mid-year. By the time all three children were finally enrolled, they had missed nearly two weeks of classroom instruction. Two weeks of math. Two weeks of reading. Two weeks of the social fabric that holds a kid together when everything else in their life has just been upended.

That scenario plays out in Placer County schools more than most of us realize. Beale AFB is thirty miles north of Lincoln, and military families routinely choose our communities — Roseville, Rocklin, Lincoln, Auburn — to settle when stationed there. These are our neighbors. Their kids sit in our classrooms. And on average, a military-connected student will change schools six to nine times before they graduate high school. Six to nine times! For families like Sarah’s, that means navigating this alone, over and over again.

Placer County’s schools are great schools. But “great” and “ready for military families” are not automatically the same thing. Being ready takes a specific kind of intentionality — a staff member who knows how to fast-track enrollment, a web page military parents can find before they move, a student who will walk the new kids through the building on day one, a counselor who understands that a transcript from a school in Georgia, or Michigan, does not map perfectly onto California’s graduation requirements. Without those things in place, families like Sarah’s lose weeks they can never get back.

This is exactly what the California Purple Star School Designation is designed to address. Created by state law in 2024, the program recognizes schools that have formalized these supports. There is no grant to apply for, no new budget line to defend. There is an application, four concrete requirements, and a designation valid for three years that tells military families: this school is ready for you.

I serve on the Roseville Joint Union High School District Board. This year, our district became the first in Placer County — and the first in all of Northern California — to earn Purple Star Designation at four school sites. I am proud of that. But I want to be honest: I do not want to be the only district in this county who can say that.

So, I am issuing a challenge, and I mean it as a genuine invitation rather than a competition: let’s make Placer County the first county in California where every eligible school earns Purple Star Designation. I believe we can do it within two years. And RJUHSD will help. We will share our application materials, connect you with the Beale AFB School Liaison, walk your staff through what we learned, and sit alongside you through the process.

The Auburn Journal, the Lincoln News Messenger, the Placer Herald, the Press Tribune — the communities these papers serve all have military families in them. The Sunset Whitney families in Rocklin, the families near Twelve Bridges in Lincoln, the households throughout Loomis and Auburn who are quietly navigating a school system that was not designed with them in mind.

We can change that. It does not take a lot of money. It takes intention. It takes a commitment.

If you lead a school district in Placer County — as a superintendent, a board member, a principal — I am asking you to look into the Purple Star program today. If you’re a parent, call your local school board and ask them to join us. The next application cycle opens this fall. That gives us a full spring and summer to prepare. Start with one school if that is where you are. We will take it from there together.

Sarah’s kids eventually found their footing. Not because the system was designed to catch them, but because good people at their new schools made it their personal business to help. Imagine if the system itself was designed that way — if every front office had a designated liaison who knew exactly how to receive a military family, if every school had a web page Sarah could have found before she ever made that first phone call, if a student had been ready to show her kids around on day one instead of day fourteen.

That is what a Purple Star school is. Let’s build more of them — right here.

Pete Constant is a Trustee on the Roseville Joint Union High School District Board of Trustees, Chair of the Department of Public Policy at Jessup University, and a resident of Roseville. Read how RJUHSD earned the Purple Star →

Op-Eds & Opinion

California’s military children deserve schools that are ready for them

As published in the Sacramento Bee · May 2, 2026

The Purple Star School Designation costs nothing — and signals everything.

By Pete Constant

Every school day, somewhere in California, a child walks into a new classroom carrying the weight of a parent’s deployment orders. They left behind their friends, their team, their teacher who finally understood them. They arrive in your district with a backpack full of records from a different state, a different curriculum, and a different set of expectations — and they are hoping someone on the other side of the enrollment counter is ready.

Most of the time, we are not.

California is home to more than 213,000 active-duty service members and National Guard and Reserve personnel — the largest concentration in the nation. Their children attend our public schools. And because military families receive relocation orders with little warning, these students can expect to change schools six to nine times between kindergarten and graduation — three times more often than their civilian peers. Each move means re-proving themselves. Each move means starting over.

There is a straightforward, no-cost way for California’s public schools to say to these families: we see you, and we are ready. It is called the Purple Star School Designation.

Established in California law in 2024 under Senate Bill 920 and administered annually by the California Department of Education, the Purple Star program publicly recognizes schools that have taken four concrete steps: designating a military family point-of-contact on staff, providing professional development on military-connected students’ needs, maintaining a dedicated web page with family resources, and running a transition program — which can be student-led — to welcome incoming military students socially and academically.

That’s it. No new funding required. No new mandate. Just intentionality, formalized — and then recognized.

In 2025, only 179 California schools held this designation. In a state with more than 10,000 public schools, that is a fraction of one percent. Forty-four other states have Purple Star programs. Florida alone has more than 450 designated schools. California, with its enormous military population and its longstanding commitment to equity in education, should be leading this movement, not trailing it.

I serve as a trustee on the Roseville Joint Union High School District Board, and I am proud that our district recently became the first in Placer County — and among the first in greater Northern California — to achieve Purple Star designation at four school sites. We did not do it because it was required. We did it because a military family should never have to wonder whether their new school is prepared for their child.

The research bears this out: the practices that serve military-connected students — structured transition protocols, designated liaisons, culturally aware staff — benefit every student. When schools get better at welcoming newcomers, all newcomers benefit. This is not a niche program. It is good schooling.

I am calling on school districts across California to act. Apply for Purple Star designation in the next application cycle, which typically opens in fall 2026. Spend the spring and summer getting ready: identify a staff liaison, build the web page, and start a student-led welcome program. The investment is modest. The return — in belonging, in continuity, in a student’s belief that this new school actually wants them there — is profound.

Military families don’t ask for much. They serve, they move, and they hope. The least we can do is be ready when they arrive.

Pete Constant is a Trustee on the Roseville Joint Union High School District Board of Trustees and an Associate Professor of Public Policy at Jessup University in Rocklin, California. Read how RJUHSD earned the Purple Star →