Bubp drafts bill to aid JROTC program

State Representative Danny Bubp (R-West Union) has announced legislation he has drafted to add the Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps (JROTC) program to the Ohio CORE curriculum.

“Without legislative action, Ohio will certainly see a drastic decrease in students joining JROTC, said Bubp. “This decrease will result in a loss of federal funding and scholarship opportunities for our students.”

Currently, students entering the ninth grade on or after July 1, 2010 are required to complete five elective units from the following: foreign language, fine arts, business, career-technical education, family and consumer sciences, technology, agricultural education, English language arts, mathematics, science or social studies.

Freshmen entering school next year cannot use credits earned from JROTC to meet the five elective unit's requirement. Bubp's legislation will amend the Ohio CORE in two ways. First it adds JROTC as a permitted elective to the five elective unit's requirement. Secondly, the legislation permits schools to include JROTC with interscholastic athletics, marching band and cheerleading as a substitute course for Physical Education.

"I think it would be unfortunate if Ohio becomes the only state in the country not to offer JROTC as an elective credit towards graduation," Captain David Pollauf, Senior Army Instructor at Western Brown JROTC said.

The JROTC program teaches young people the value of citizenship, community, personal responsibility and academic achievement. Sixty-three programs with more than 7,000 cadets who are actively participating in schools across Ohio.

The bill is scheduled to be introduced and assigned to a committee this fall.