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US Service Children Return to School

Mazen Mahdi, Foreign Correspondent Last Updated: August 19. 2009 9:40PM UAE / August 19. 2009 5:40PM GMT Mazen Mahdi / The National MANAMA //

Five years after the families of US service members were ordered to leave Bahrain by the Pentagon over fears of an impending terrorist attack, the first batch of returning children will next week start attending the Bahrain School in the Gulf island once again.

The Bahrain School, which is part of the 14-country worldwide US Department of Defense Education Activity (DoDEA), will re-enrol children of service members after the DoD, believing the country is now safe, authorised the return of all military family members to Bahrain on June 26.

The authorisation follows a decision last November to allow the return of adult family members.

The easing of restrictions began in April 2007 when family visits were allowed and adult relatives of sailors serving at the headquarters of the Manama-based 5th Fleet travelled to Bahrain on a 14-day visa, which could be extended by an additional 14 days.

“The return of our family members will make the quality of life for our service members and department of defense civilians better,” said Vice Adm Bill Gortney, US Naval Forces Central Command (NavCent) commander.

“It also reinforces the security and stability of the region and demonstrates our enduring commitment to Bahrain,” he added.

Vice Adm Gortney, who at the time of the 2004 decision was chief of staff for NavCent, was one of the service members affected by the evacuation as his family was among those who had to leave.

Since taking command of the US Navy 5th Fleet in July of last year, he had repeatedly emphasised his desire to push for the families’ return.  “I have been committed to having family members return to Bahrain ever since,” he said in November following the lifting of the ban on adult family members. His wife was the first dependent to return.

About 650 dependents and non-essential DoD staff – including 350 students and teachers at the school – were ordered out of Bahrain in July of 2004 in a decision approved by then defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld based on what the Pentagon described at the time as an “increased threat of terrorist attack”.

The “temporary relocation” of the families under the mandatory departure orders coincided with a state department travel warning issued on July 1, 2004 that urged US citizens in Bahrain to consider leaving and warned US citizens to defer travel to the island.

The 2004 decision by the defence and state departments almost led to the closure of the Bahrain School, which also caters to students from Saudi Arabia and is considered, since its establishment in the 1960s, to be one of the best private schools in the region.

But an eleventh-hour effort by the Bahraini government and the school board kept it open. Through meetings between the school board, the US Embassy and 5th Fleet officials in Bahrain, and a visit by Bahrain’s crown prince, Sheikh Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa, to Washington, where he met the then vice president Dick Cheney, Mr Rumsfeld, secretary of state Colin Powell, and national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, a deal was reached that allowed the school to stay open.

Sheikh Salman, an alumni of the school, is one of hundreds of graduates who today hold key governmental or private sector positions in Bahrain and abroad.

According to school officials, each year 55-60 students graduate, with 99 per cent of them going on to university, many of them in the US, Canada and the UK.

Asligul Erman, who attended the Bahrain School between 1994 and 1998 while her father served as a diplomat in the Gulf island, enjoyed the multicultural nature of the school, which was established in the 1960s primarily to serve dependents of the US military but grew to serve others from Bahrain and the Gulf.

“It’s a very diverse environment, you get to interact with students and teachers from different cultures and backgrounds and learn a lot of things about their cultures and countries. I see that as an important asset for the future, where we get to work in a rapidly shrinking world,” she said.

Jeannie McLaughlin, who graduated in 1986, said the cultural diversity was one of the school’s strongest points. “Bahrain School was unique to me in that there was a large variety of cultures and people represented, almost like a mini United Nations.”

Ms. McLaughlin, a Texas-based Public Relations Director for a top financial firm said the education at the school was “above exceptional”.

jeanniemclaughlin@gmail.com, 972-983-4258.  “It prepared me well for college and life in general,” she said.

The Bahrain School’s cultural diversity and educational excellence is something the new school principal, Gail Anderson, is both impressed by and keen to maintain.

“The kids … don’t see the demographic differences, they are very accepting and students here have an international element that you don’t see in stateside children who have not travelled,” Ms Anderson said.

The new principal, whose teenage daughter will join the school at the start of the new academic year, added that the institution’s diversity would persist even with the expected influx of returning American students.

“There is so much diversity already in place and bringing in the American dependents would add to that diversity as most of them are world travellers,” she said.

Currently 400 students are enrolled at the school, though 516 are expected to be enrolled by the start of the academic year.

The deputy public affairs officer at the US Navy 5th Fleet, Lt Cmdr Corey Barker, said student numbers at the school would probably grow further and said the improved security infrastructure in Bahrain both on and off base was the reason families of service members were allowed to return.

“All of the service members’ families, as they gradually come to Bahrain, would benefit from the school that is recognised as one of the best in the department of defence,” he said.

“The return of families to Bahrain will be a gradual process over the next year with the numbers of family members steadily growing.”

Hundreds of students of US navy families serving in Bahrain are expected to join the school, which provides an American curriculum from prekindergarten through grade 12.

The only other DoD school in the region is the George C Marshall in Ankara, Turkey.

Bahrain School, which also offers the International Baccalaureate as well as a number of advanced placement courses, charges private students between US$23,496 (Dh86,300) and $25,968 a year for tuition. mazennews@gmail.com

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