Northside High Air Force Junior ROTC receives highest award

There are nearly 900 high schools across the United States, and at selected schools in Europe, the Pacific and Puerto Rico, with established Air Force JROTC units on campus. Only 79 of those schools were selected to receive the 2019-2020 AFJROTC Distinguished Unit with Merit Award, and Northside High School was among the elite.

The AFJROTC is the highest honor that is awarded within an Air Force Junior ROTC program, and Major Dennis Jolissaint couldn’t be prouder of the young people that serve in Northside High’s program. He explained that the honor is not simple to acquire. Headquarters, on an every-three-years basis, conducts an evaluation, and the 2019-2020 school year marked the time for it to be done.

“It’s an inspection, basically,” Jolissaint said. “They come in and look at everything we do, including all of our cadet activities and our finances. They look at the inventory of every piece of equipment that the Air Force has issued us; that includes our uniforms. They check to see if it’s all in order, if the information is kept in the Air Force computer system properly—everything,” Jolissaint concluded.

The main component that is looked for is the assurance that the program is actually being cadet-run. “The inspectors come in and kind of kick the instructors out of the room when they do this evaluation,” Jolissaint explained. “The cadet staff has to present the inspection. They have a huge checklist that they have to run through with the inspector. They go through the various logistics and supply and personnel to see that the cadets are running the program.” Jolissaint said that at the end of the complex assessment, each program is categorized based on the inspection outcome. “You can meet standards, exceed standards, or be considered unsatisfactory,” Jolissaint pointed out, adding that unsatisfactory was definitely not the outcome that a unit would ever want to receive.

Only those JROTC programs that were determined to have exceeded standards qualify to be given consideration to receive the coveted Distinguished Unit with Merit Award. “Our cadets were among those who were determined to have exceeded standards,” Jolissaint said. He further explained that cadets in JROTC are expected to do a considerable amount of community service. To be considered for the award, a minimum for each cadet is 12 hours per year. “We have 180 or 185 cadets,” Jolissaint said of Northside High School. “Each of our cadets averaged 15 hours of community service. Our minimum to be considered was 2,200 hours of community service, and I think we pulled in around 2,600 hours.”

COVID-19 forced the closings of school campuses well before the end of the year, and it also put an end to gatherings and events for school-based AFJROTC programs, just as it did with all other student activities. However the inspection that led to Northside High’s AFJROTC unit being the recipient of this highest honor was conducted in October 2019, before knowledge of the virus was widespread.

Jolissaint admitted that the pandemic has taken a few things away from the AFJROTC program this year. “We were going to do two flag retirement ceremonies that can’t happen now,” he said, “and then there was our spring awards ceremony wherein about 15 different organizations come together and present awards to the kids for various accomplishments. We lost the opportunity to do that ceremony, but the kids will still get their awards.” Jolissaint noted that the largest canceled event is called CLC (Cadet Leadership Course), which was to take place at Camp John Hope. But even COVID-19 couldn’t rob them of the Distinguished Unit with Merit Award.

“The cut-off to have done all the things that they look at is April 10,” Jolissaint said, “but March 13 was our last day of school. That cut out a month to get things done. What helped us is that our cadets had already met all the requirements to be a distinguished unit with merit. Our cadet staff is just amazing. I’d love to take all the credit, but the cadets own this program,” Jolissaint said. “The other two instructors and I … we just stand and watch them organize and run everything,” he added with a laugh.”

Major Jolissaint’s official position with the unit is known as SASI, which stands for Senior Aerospace Science Instructor ,and he has served for almost 10 years. In all but one of those years, Northside High has been named a Distinguished Unit. This year makes the second time, during his tenure, that the school has been recipient of a Distinguished Unit with Merit Award.

When giving an overall summation of what the JROTC program is all about, Jolissaint said, “You know, you hear a lot of the people saying that kids of today need life skills, structure, and instructions. They need to know how to conduct themselves in a job interview and how to present themselves in society. Well, in Junior ROTC, we give them that. We teach personal finance, fitness—even hygiene and how to answer a phone properly. We have so many levels of leadership that the kids have the chance to be a responsible leader of anywhere from three or four people to up to 30, 40, or 100. If you’re the core commander at Northside right now, you’re leading 180. They learn life skills in Junior ROTC, no matter what the branch is. That’s what I want people to know,” Major Jolissaint said. “This is a great program for today’s kids.”

HHJ News