Guest blog post by Carol Westergren, national Education Committee Southern Division chair
 
When you navigate to the ALA Education Committee page on the national website, you may have noticed a link for the Military Child Education Coalition (MCEC). If you have not clicked on the link, you should look at this website. The mission of the Military Child Education Coalition is to ensure quality education experiences for military children. The MCEC is an organization that the American Legion Auxiliary promotes, and we share the same mission — to take care of military children. 
 
Let me illuminate what the MCEC is and how we can share resources. MCEC is a national nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting children of our military servicemembers as they navigate the challenges of military lifestyle, especially the military move. The MCEC helps children with social, emotional, and academic challenges with the goal of connecting schools, organizations, and other resources to make sure these students are college-, work-, and life-ready. 
 
The three principal areas of the MCEC are education, advocacy, and collaboration. You can find MCEC collaborating with teachers, school staff, and parents to understand the unique needs of military children. They offer educational programs and resources designed to empower parents and give their children the tools they need to succeed, along with training and resources to give insight into educators’ need to serve the children of those who serve. 
 
Their advocacy includes help to ensure the child can enroll in the desired school and their credits transfer. They collaborate with education agencies to ensure state-to-state learning paces and curriculum tracks are standardized and that students can transfer and be accepted into special programs. They advocate with schools and military installations and policy makers to improve the enrollment process. They also collaborate and build partnerships with other nonprofit, military commands, and organizations like the ALA to create dedicated support for our military families.
 
What can you and the ALA do to help the MCEC and our military families? The MCEC aligns with several of our programs, and we can support them through our participation in our education-focused activities. Their resources are available for our use when we Purple Up! for military children in April and when we advocate for our military families during the Washington Conference — their website contains ample information to support our cause. 
 
I recommend you share information about this organization at your ALA meetings, during our community events, and when collaborating with our teachers during National Education Week, and make sure they have the information.
 
You may ask why this matters — because two organizations working together to make education stronger and safer for military children will make our military families stronger and safer and feel like they are loved and taken care of.