Junior ROTC programs on solid ground thanks to change in federal law

Krysta Harper’s education wasn’t going well when she was a freshman at Plum High School.

“My grades were failing and absolutely miserable,” she said.

Now a senior, her grades are up and she’s preparing to graduate, thanks in part, she says, to the school’s Air Force Junior ROTC program.

“ROTC really taught me that school is important and everything that I’m going to do down the line is just as important as anything else I do every day. It really taught me a lot.

“I definitely made it a lot farther than I would have expected to.”

Harper is one of many success stories attributed to Junior ROTC programs in area high schools and the reason, officials say, it’s important to keep the programs going.

Covid, low enrollments jeopardize programs

But low enrollment in some Air Force programs was threatening to stop them at several area schools, including Plum. Until this year, the National Defense Authorization Act required high school units to have at least 100 cadets, or 10% of a school’s enrollment. In an effort to save the programs at school districts like Plum, North Allegheny and Pine-Richland, the act was amended for 2025 to require 50 cadets.

The change means military branches — the Air Force and Army are the most common Junior ROTC programs in Western Pennsylvania — can continue to run the programs in area schools even if they have lower enrollments.

The Air Force Junior ROTC programs at all three of those districts had been on probationary status, meaning they were in danger of being shut down, until the change.

Plum’s program has 66 cadets, said its instructor, retired Col. Paul Nosek. It was assessed as exceeding standards, the highest rating attainable, in a recent evaluation.

“I’m happy that we’ll be able to continue the program,” said Nosek, who came to Plum in 2021. “We still want to build up to that over-100 number. The more we grow the program, the better it is for the cadets, and we can do more for the community.”

North Allegheny’s Air Force Junior ROTC was established in 1967, the year after the national Air Force program was created in 1966. It was placed on probation after an evaluation in 2023 when it had 63 cadets, and currently has 64, said Lt. Col. Don Accamando, senior aerospace science instructor.

”We remain committed to welcoming new young women and men to the Air Force JROTC program at North Allegheny,” Accamando said. “We are proud of the elective that offers students such a wide variety of after-school programs and allows them to enjoy an enriching curriculum based on leadership, the thrill of aviation and a sense of giving back to the community.”

Pine-Richland’s program was placed on probation this school year, prior to the enrollment requirement change, district spokeswoman Erin Hasinger said. It now has 98 students, up from 82 in the 2023-24 school year.

“We credit the increase in enrollment this past year to how we promote the program to students, making our students aware that it is a leadership and service program to help dispel the myth that JROTC is only a path to the military,” Hasinger said. “We emphasize community service, leadership and drill competitions.”

While each military branch has its own Junior ROTC program, the majority in the Pittsburgh area is affiliated with the Air Force. Other Air Force affiliated districts are Laurel Highlands, Ligonier Valley, McKeesport, New Castle, Norwin and West Mifflin.

With just 50 cadets, Ligonier Valley was not on probation, Col. Charles Johnson said, because of the school’s small size. With only about 440 students, Ligonier Valley met the secondary requirement of having at least 10% of its students enrolled.

“For the amount of money that the Air Force provides to the school, they want to make sure they’re getting the most for their money,” Johnson said of the reason for the requirement.

Of 825 Air Force Junior ROTC programs worldwide, 243 units, or about 29%, were on probation for enrollment, Air Force spokesman Keith Bland said. A total of 50 or more were being released from that status, including the three in the Pittsburgh area.

The Air Force has closed 59 Junior ROTC units since January 2022, but closures are often due to multiple reasons, and it wasn’t known how many were closed because of enrollment, he said.

“While enrollment often plays a factor in these decisions, most recent closures have primarily been based on a lack of instructors,” Bland said.

Districts with Army Junior ROTC programs are New Kensington-Arnold, Albert Gallatin, Beaver Area, Butler, Connellsville and Trinity Area, along with Perry High School in Pittsburgh. The Army operates 29 programs in Pennsylvania, according to its website.

Army Junior ROTC programs go back even further than the Air Force, created in 1916. The Army’s program operates in more than 1,700 schools in the United States and abroad and has more than 300,000 cadets annually.

Under the same enrollment requirements as the Air Force programs, there are no Army Junior ROTC programs on probationary status in Western Pennsylvania, according to Maj. Dan Lessard, director of public affairs for the U.S. Army Cadet Command.

The Navy operates only nine Junior ROTC programs in Pennsylvania, none in the western part of the state. The only Marine Corps Junior ROTC program in Western Pennsylvania is at West Allegheny High School in Imperial.

Federal law requires all branches of the military to operate Junior ROTC programs.

Not a recruitment program

The covid-19 pandemic hurt the programs nationwide because officials were not able to go into middle schools to make students aware of the programs as they were preparing to advance to high school, Nosek said.

“It’s been rough since covid,” he said.

The longer a unit is on probation, its survivability becomes more tenuous, Nosek said. Plum, which was in its second year of probation, could have been in jeopardy of being shuttered as of the 2026-27 school year.

Nosek called on Plum School Board members to help promote the program, saying he needed their help to get out word of what the program is and is not about, in hopes of getting more students enrolled and keeping the program going.

“What we are not is a military recruitment program. You do not have to join the military if you are in JROTC,” he said. “We are an elective class just like any other class. We teach leadership, citizenship and physical fitness.”

In fact, the majority of students who take Junior ROTC in high school do not join the military, Nosek said. While it does provide benefits for those who do join, each year only one or two out of about a dozen graduates do so.

“We never push anybody to go into the military,” he said. “We don’t actively recruit in our class.”

In fact, the programs never were meant as a recruitment tool. The federal law that created the programs for all military branches charged them to “instill in students in United States secondary educational institutions the values of citizenship, service to the United States, and personal responsibility and a sense of accomplishment.”

The Junior ROTC program’s official mission is, “To Motivate Young People to be Better Citizens.”

For the Plum community, Junior ROTC puts on events such as the annual Toys for Tots drive and Veterans Day ceremony and parks cars for home football games. For the students, the skills and abilities they learn make them attractive to businesses looking to hire.

“We teach life skills to be successful in life,” Nosek said. “We need to get that word out to parents.”

All Junior ROTC programs focus on physical fitness and leadership qualities but also heavily stress STEM and other scientific disciplines tailored to the specific branch of the military operating the program. For instance, the Air Force program exposes students to areas such as aerospace engineering.

Cadets also participate in a variety of public service programs.

Superintendent Rick Walsh said he and Plum’s school board support the program.

“I personally look forward to the Veterans Day ceremony every year. It is touching for me to see some of the neighbors that I grew up with that are a little long in the tooth showing up and literally brought to tears,” he said. “We are ‘all-in’ in regard to building this program and sustaining this program.”

Cadets see the benefits, from increasing confidence and learning leadership to losing weight and getting fit.

“We really grow and build students,” said Kaylee Sweeney, a senior and cadet commander at Plum. “My freshman year, I couldn’t even imagine coming up here and speaking to all of you. I was very shy, very quiet. But JROTC really built my confidence. I learned a lot from this program that’s really going to help me for my future.”

Senior Adam Smith said he has developed the confidence to lead others. He is among that small number planning to attend a military academy after high school.

“It is really kick-starting my career in the military and has been a massive help for everything,” he said, adding that Junior ROTC is one of the only classes that teaches leadership.

“We have class periods where all we talk about is leadership — how to be a better leader, how to be a better follower and how to manage people underneath you,” he said. “Just that experience will make anybody stand out in the civilian world.”

Plum student Jacob Landis said, before Junior ROTC, he weighed more than 200 pounds and could barely run a mile or do a single push-up.

“As of right now, I can run a mile in six minutes and 17 seconds. And that is over a seven-, eight-minute improvement from my 13-minute mile when I was a freshman,” he said. “I also did 500 push-ups a day in December for our physical fitness team.

“That shows how much ROTC changed me physically.”