Burlington, Washington- The Navy NJROTC area manager responds to the Burlington Edison High School Principal, Mr. Setterlund, on the decision to end the Burlington Edison High School NJROTC Program. A copy of the letter in it’s entirety is listed below:
Burlington Edison High school team,
As the Area Manager for the NJROTC program, I am writing this email in response to the attached letter. My desire is to clear up the inaccuracies and inconsistencies with the way it is written.
Mr. Setterlund, your point in paragraph two is misleading: “failure to meet participation minimums two years in a row means a discontinuation of the program”. With the proceeding words in that paragraph you are implicitly saying you have gone two consecutive years with low enrollment and must discontinue the program; which is untrue.
Burlington NJROTC is not on probation, and would not be on probation until after 1 OCT 2016, if you did not meet numbers. I want to be clear the Navy is not discontinuing your program, as your letter implies. Mr. Setterlund, when you called me, I said, you would have to submit a letter to the Navy requesting “mutual disestablishment”. Why? Because your program is in good standing.
Secondly, Mr. Setterlund you stated that the Navy denied your request to “rebuild the program…”. Sir that is simply not true. You made a request of 4 years, which was beyond what the law could support when under probation. The Navy grants you 1 school year to rebuild the program, just like it did the last time. It is the school’s decision not to accept the 1 year grace period. Had you said in the letter that you don’t believe as the principal that you could rebuild the program between now and OCT 1 2017, I would accept that as being a fair statement. However, to place the closure on the Navy, under the premise “the Navy” denied a good faith request is simply not true, and should be, in good conscience, clarified to all recipients of the letter.
Burlington Team, the Navy will unilaterally close a unit that does not meet minimum enrollment standards. In accordance with this letter, Burlington-Edison is closing a program in good standing with the Navy, and the community needs to correctly understand this distinction.
Mr. Setterlund, as I stated to you on the phone, you have two superb individuals interested in the job. I stated that it would certainly be worth the effort to see if this leadership team could revive the program, because we both know LCOL Rice was not the right person to do what was needed. In your letter you state that the school is 100% behind the program, which implies the program failed because of the NJROTC leadership. I can partially accept that premise for last year. But if a new NSI team could provide the forward motion needed, then one could determine if the school/district has blame and or the NJROTC team. As I recommended, why not allow a local team knowing the risks to give it a shot; only then could you determine if there was more that the school could do?
Burlington-Edison team, as always I stand-by to assist. Please feel free to call me at anytime. My number is office (Redacted), or cell (redacted) It is my hope that Burlington Edison not close the program, but if you so choose to do so, that you make it clear to your community that it is the desire of your team to close the program and that in this case the Navy is not involved with the circumstances surrounding your decision.
Vr Dan Wenceslao, Area Manager Area 13
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