This year’s Tricare open season started Monday and ends Dec.8. Military families can compare their options through Tricare Prime and Tricare Select, with the help of cost information released by Tricare officials last week.

Generally, those who have been paying out-of-pocket for healthcare under Tricare in 2026 will pay extra in 2027, according to the new fee schedules. Overall, for these groups, the co-payment increases are about 4%, or $1 to $3 for outpatient visits. Increases of another 4% apply to enrollment fees for retirees and their families who aren’t yet Medicare-eligible. The largest enrollment fee is for certain retirees in Tricare Select, who will pay $1,233 to enroll their family in 2027, up from $1,191 in 2026.

Active-duty families, whether in Tricare Prime or Tricare Select, don’t pay enrollment fees.

Open season applies to those enrolled in or eligible for Tricare Prime or Tricare Select. Beneficiaries can make changes to their health coverage, such as switching from Tricare Prime to Tricare Select, or moving from individual to family enrollment. Depending on the plan, Tricare costs may include enrollment fees, premiums, cost-shares and co-payments.

It’s also the 2026 Federal Benefits Open Season, beginning Monday and ending Dec. 14.

Some Tricare beneficiaries are eligible for the Federal Employees Dental and Vision Insurance Program, or FEDVIP. In addition, active-duty service members can enroll in and make their annual selections for the dependent care flexible spending program and healthcare flexible spending program — two tax-saving programs that can help defray some of the costs of childcare and healthcare. This is the Federal Flexible Spending Account Program, or FSAFEDS.

Both FSAFEDS and FEDVIP are administered by BENEFEDS for the Office of Personnel Management.

Any changes made to Tricare plans, FEDVIP or FSAFEDS will take effect Jan. 1, 2027. If you’re eligible for these plans, now is the time to enroll; otherwise, you’ll have to wait until a qualifying life event, such as the birth or adoption of a child, marriage, divorce, moving or changes to other health insurance.

Those who are satisfied with their current Tricare or FEDVIP plan don’t need to take action.

Open season doesn’t apply to individual active-duty service members, or to Tricare for Life, or to the premium -based plans of Tricare Reserve Select, Tricare Retired Reserve and Tricare Young Adult. These premium-based plans can be purchased at any time during the year, but those in Tricare Young Adult with either the Prime or Select options can change plans only during open enrollment or a qualifying life event.

Visit Tricare.mil/openseason to find information about making changes online, by phone or by mailing an enrollment form to the regional contractor.

The plans

Tricare Prime is a health maintenance organization-style plan in which you get most of your care from a primary care manager, with referrals required for specialty care. There is no deductible.

Active-duty service members, their family members and transitional survivors don’t pay enrollment fees or out-of-pocket costs for covered services in Prime, unless they get non-emergency care without a referral, use non-network providers without authorization or use a pharmacy other than a military pharmacy.

Retirees, their families and all others pay enrollment fees and out-of-pocket costs for covered services except for preventive care.

Meanwhile, Tricare Select is a preferred provider organization-style plan in which you choose your Tricare-authorized provider and aren’t required to get referrals for most services. There are deductibles, co-payments and cost shares.

The costs

By law, there are differences in some costs based on when the sponsor entered the military. Those who entered before Jan. 1, 2018, are part of Group A, while those who enter on or after Jan. 1, 2018, are part of Group B.

Active-duty service members don’t have out-of-pocket costs for Tricare, but their family members may, depending on their health plan, the sponsor’s pay grade and group, the type of care and where they get their care.

There aren’t co-payments for any group for preventive care visits. For other covered services, such as primary care visits and specialty care outpatient visits, some co-pays will increase by $1 to $3 per visit, with some outliers.

For example, for some of those in Tricare Select, emergency room visit costs will go up by $4 or $5. For active-duty family members in Group A using Tricare Select, the cost per emergency room visit increases by $4, from $103 in 2026 to $107 in 2027.

Active-duty members, family members and transitional survivors don’t pay annual enrollment fees. But for retirees and their family members, the fees increase by about 4% in 2027. They’ll range from $396 for an individual Group A retiree in Prime to $1,233.96 for a Group B retiree plus their family in Tricare Select.

For active-duty family members in Tricare Prime, there’s no annual deductible, which is the out-of-pocket cost required before Tricare kicks in.

Those in Tricare Select have annual deductibles, which have increased by about 4% for those in Group B, who entered the military after Jan. 1, 2018. For example, for a family whose service member is E4 and below, the annual deductible increases by $5, to $137. Families of those in the ranks of E5 and above will see their deductible increased by $14, to $411.

Pharmacy costs won’t change in 2027. Beneficiaries can get most prescriptions filled at military pharmacies at no cost, and they can also get prescriptions through the Tricare Pharmacy Home Delivery program and at retail pharmacies in the Tricare network.

The largest cost increases, announced earlier, are in the premium-based plans. Those include:

• Tricare Young Adult Prime, for members’ unmarried adult dependents ages 21 to 26: Costs increase by 12.5 % to $893 per month in 2027, compared to $794 in 2026.
• Tricare Young Adult Select: Costs increase by 8.5% to $394 per month in 2027 from $363 in 2026.
• Tricare Reserve Select, for qualified Selected Reserve and their family members: Costs increase by 4.5% for service members only to $60.54 per month in 2027 from $57.88 in 2026. Adding family, the cost is $307.48, up 7.2% per month from $286.66 in 2026.
• Tricare Retired Reserve: $707.59 per month for service members only, up 9.5% from $645.90 in 2026. Adding family, costs total $1,697.70, up 9.6% from $1,548.30 in 2026.

Dental and vision

Families of active duty, National Guard and Reserve service members, as well as Guardsmen and reservists who aren’t on active duty, are eligible for the Tricare Dental Program. That program requires a separate enrollment. The premiums will stay the same through Feb. 28, 2027.

Most retirees and their family members are eligible for dental coverage under the Federal Employees Dental and Vision Insurance Program, or FEDVIP. Visit benefeds.gov to compare choices of dental plans available by ZIP code and to enroll or make changes to an existing plan. FEDVIP open season ends Dec. 14.

Active-duty family members, retirees and their eligible family members and Selected Reserve members and their families are eligible for FEDVIP vision coverage. They must be enrolled in a Tricare health plan to be eligible. Visit benefeds.gov.

Flexible spending accounts

Flexible spending accounts can be used to defray the costs of healthcare, as well as dependent care. Troops set aside pre-tax money to reduce the amount of taxable income.

The accounts are sponsored by the Office of Personnel Management through the Federal Flexible Spending Account Program. The open season sign-up for these accounts ends Dec. 14.

For more information and to set up accounts for 2027, visit fsafeds.gov.

Officials advise troops to take advantage of the Defense Department’s free counseling and advice from personal financial management counselors at many military installations, and tax counselors available all year through DoD’s Military OneSource. FSAFEDS also offers free benefits counseling.

Currently, parents don’t have access to a child’s medical records from the time they turn 13, “based on current departmental policy,” Lt. Gen. Mary K. Izaguirre said Tuesday at the annual meeting of the Association of the United States Army.

In addition, children don’t have ID cards to sign in to the Defense Enrollment Eligibility System (DEERS), she said. Children must be at least 18 to log in to the system.

The question of parents’ access came up during a family forum at AUSA. Izaguirre said the issue is one of her husband’s favorite topics, and “I share his passion for it,” she said.

For now, parents must go to the patient administration offices at their military treatment facilities and have their teenage children sign consent forms to give parents permission for access to their medical records.

“That’s a barrier,” Izaguirre said, adding that “we’ve been working with the [Defense Health Agency], and the [Department of Health and Human Services]” to address the hurdle.

The issue stems from privacy laws and has come up in various settings with military families.

Researchers with the organization Feedback were “surprised at how often this came up, not just one parent at one base,” said Erin Domagola, the research director at the organization. Feedback analyzed comments received in the Federal Register, following a Defense Department solicitation in March for comments and suggestions from military families on how DoD could improve their quality of life.

Feedback uses applied anthropology, behavioral science and digital ethnography to understand what people experience and why.

The company independently analyzed Federal Register military family comments from 2024 to 2026 about quality of life. While there were a relatively small number of comments overall —117 in 2026 — it does provide a window into some of the concerns and suggestions, the researchers said.

The Social Security Administration’s COLA announcement Wednesday sets the rate of increase for about 72 million Social Security beneficiaries, but also for military retirees and people receiving veterans benefits. The increase goes into effect in January and is 0.8% higher than the 2.8% COLA in 2026.

It’s the biggest increase in four years.

Officials estimate that on average, the monthly Social Security benefit will increase by $75.

As an example, a military retiree who receives $2,500 in retired pay will see a COLA increase of about $90 per month.

For a veteran receiving $1,500 per month in benefits, the increase would be about $54 in 2027.

In 2024, Congress passed legislation that ties increases in veterans’ benefits to the rate of Social Security increases. The cost-of-living increase applies to disability compensation, clothing allowances and dependency and indemnity benefits, as well as some other Department of Veterans Affairs assistance programs.

The COLA is designed to ensure benefits keep pace with inflation. The calculation is based on the Consumer Price Index, which tracks the cost of a wide range of items and calculates inflation and changes in the cost of living.

The 2026 COLA was 2.8%, a few ticks higher than the 2025 COLA of 2.5%.

Those with personal “my Social Security” accounts can view their COLA notice online starting in late November, a few weeks earlier than those who receive paper notices in the mail, officials said.

The Defense Health Agency announced in mid-September that it was switching from the older login process, DS Logon, to a new program called myAuth for the MHS Genesis system.

DS Logon required lengthy passwords that had to be changed frequently, while myAuth promised a more “user-friendly experience” and improved security, according to DHA.

Following the transition, however, some patients have been unable to access their own medical records. Sponsors must grant access permission to their spouses and dependents, and in some cases, dependent children aren’t showing up on either parent’s accounts.

“Just stop changing things. Every time one system finally starts working and everyone gets used to it, you switch it up. Tricare online was fine. Genesis was fine,” an Army spouse wrote on Tricare’s Facebook page.

In response, DHA announced Sept. 25 that the patient portal would remain “fully accessible via DS Logon.”

But beneficiaries say when they use the old DS Logon system, they are redirected to the myAuth login page and still cannot access family records.

“I can log in and see all my stuff. I can send out messages and receive them … but nothing for my kids,” a military spouse said in a direct message to Military Times. “To message their doctor, I have to send a message through my name and put in the subject my child’s name.”

DHA spokeswoman Brenda Campbell said Thursday that DHA is working with the Defense Manpower Data Center to resolve the issues. DMDC manages the myAuth system and is responsible for the transition from DS Logon, she said.

“MyAuth is a new digital login that replaces DS Logon for accessing [Defense Department] websites and applications, like the MHS GENESIS Patient Portal. We are aware of the issues associated with the transition and are providing that feedback to DMDC to ensure appropriate fixes are applied,” Campbell said.

According to DHA, MyAuth will provide more ways to log in to the MHS Patient Portal, allow for use of a Common Access Card, verification through the Okta mobile app and other authentication choices.

It also has a simpler interface that is more user-friendly, DHA officials added.

“The switch to myAuth means a simpler, more secure experience in MHS Genesis Patient Portal,” they said.

Another change to the Defense Department’s information technology systems will affect Military Health System patients and Tricare beneficiaries this weekend: a planned outage of the Defense Enrollment Eligibility Reporting System, or DEERS, as it transitions to a cloud-based system.

DEERS will be offline from 9 p.m. Eastern Standard Time on Friday, Oct. 9, to Sunday, Oct. 11, although the Pentagon has not specified a time.

During the outage, beneficiaries won’t be able to update their DEERS records and pharmacies and healthcare providers may not be able to check a patient’s Tricare eligibility.

The DEERS database contains information about military personnel, retirees, family members and civilian employees.

Officials at Fort Bragg and Corvias, the privatized housing company that operates the installation’s housing, recently marked the renovation of the first of 21 historic homes that are ready for military families. They were built between 1928 and 1939, and feature elements including stucco walls, copper gutters, hardwood floors and basements.

Fort Bragg has 230 homes that were built before 1940, and all are designated as historic. But these aren’t even the oldest of Army housing. There are 867 houses built before 1919, located on 19 other Army installations in 13 states and the District of Columbia, according to the Army.

At Fort Bragg, about 2,300 of the base’s 6,104 homes were built before 1960, officials said.

The Army manages the largest inventory of historic housing in the federal government, with more than 30,000 historic homes that are more than 50 years old. These homes are subject to the requirements of the National Historic Preservation Act, according to the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation.

That federal agency’s mission is to promote the preservation of America’s historic places and has worked with the Army and the other services as they prepare plans to renovate these houses, making sure they preserve the historic character while meeting the needs of families.

“These residences are an important part of Fort Bragg’s history, but their greatest value is continuing to serve soldiers and families who live in these homes,” said Col. Luke Wittmer, the installation’s garrison commander, in an announcement. “This renovation preserves history while ensuring we continue to meet the needs of today’s families.”

Historic homes have long been a challenge to preserve and maintain for military families, with a variety of issues such as lead paint and asbestos, which are both hazardous and costly to remediate.

Most of the military’s historic homes were included in the inventory of military housing that was turned over to private companies to operate and maintain, starting in the early 2000s.

According to the Army, historic homes currently take an average of 18 days to prepare between occupants, compared to 15 days for a standard home. The average cost is $4,342, compared to $3,681 for a standard home.

Fort Bragg was designated a permanent Army post in 1922, and construction of the first permanent party officers’ family quarters along Alexander and Hunt streets began in 1927, officials said. Construction of noncommissioned officer family housing began in 1928.

The planned outage is scheduled to begin at 9 p.m. Eastern Standard Time on Friday, Oct. 9, and end Sunday, Oct. 11. As of Thursday, information was not available about what specific time the outage is expected to end on Sunday.

During the outage, beneficiaries won’t be able to make any updates to their DEERS record. Pharmacies and healthcare providers may not be able to check a patient’s Tricare eligibility.

Officials note that there are other benefits systems that rely on DEERS, and the outage may affect those systems, too.

The Defense Manpower Data Center is updating DEERS, and it will be moving to a new cloud environment.

“The Defense Health Agency is working closely with DMDC during this time,” officials said in an announcement about the planned outage. “The goal is to keep any disruption as small as possible.”

DEERS is a database of information about military personnel, Defense Department and military service civilians and their family members. To get Tricare coverage, beneficiaries must be registered in DEERS.

Beneficiaries who need to make changes, or who need to check their information in DEERS, should do so before the weekend by visiting milconnect before 9 p.m. Friday.

This year’s Tricare Open Season begins Nov. 9 and ends Dec. 8. During that time, beneficiaries can enroll in or change their health plan for the next year. Changes made during open season will take effect Jan. 1, 2027.

Starting in November, veterans won’t have to pay insurance premiums for three months, ending in January 2027, according to a Department of Veterans Affairs announcement.

All told, the break is expected to save veterans nearly $150 million in insurance payments, officials said.

On average, veterans pay about $110 a month for VGLI coverage. VGLI insurance premiums vary and increase every five years as veterans age. Payments range from $30 a month for the maximum $500,000 in insurance to $2,200 a month for the maximum coverage for veterans 80 and older.

All veterans with VGLI policies are eligible for the premium holiday if they have a current policy that hasn’t lapsed or been cancelled due to non-payment of premiums.

Eligible veterans don’t have to take any action. They will be automatically exempted from the three months of premium payments and will be notified by letter or email within the coming weeks if they are eligible. Many veterans pay by allotment from military retired pay, or by withdrawals from their bank account.

Those veterans who paid in advance can either receive credit on their policies for three months or ask for refunds, officials said.

Officials said the program’s financial performance has been “incredibly strong,” making the premium holiday possible.

“VA is all about making life better and more affordable for veterans, and this premium holiday will help the men and women who served this nation keep more of their hard-earned money,” said VA Secretary Doug Collins in the announcement about the initiative.

Servicemembers’ Group Life Insurance coverage doesn’t automatically carry over after leaving the military. Everyone leaving the military with SGLI coverage qualifies to sign up for VGLI, with certain time limits.

However, VGLI is more expensive than SGLI, so experts advise shopping around for other life insurance options. One advantage of VGLI is that veterans who sign up within 240 days of leaving the military don’t need to prove they’re in good health.

The class action, filed before the Merit Systems Protection Board, pursues compensation for five current and former federal civilian employees who also serve in the military. The suit is against the Departments of Defense, Justice and Veterans Affairs, according to the motion shared with Military Times.

The suit says the reservists served on qualifying active duty during a declared national emergency and were not paid the difference between their civilian salary and military pay.

Those listed in the class action are: Army Reserve Capt. Lacy Jaudon, Army Reserve Lt. Col. Shahara Timbrook, Army reservist Shea Matthew Gibbons, Navy reservist Bryce Miller, and Army Reserve Capt. John Mezzanotte.

Some of the reservists served on active duty dating back to 2016, while two are still under orders through Sept. 30.

Reservist differential pay was enacted by Congress in 2009 to protect eligible federal civilian employees who are members of the Reserve or National Guard from taking a pay cut when called to active duty during a declared national emergency.

Following that passage, the Office of Personnel Management restricted the types of active-duty service that are eligible for differential pay.

The class action comes over a year after the Supreme Court ruled in Feliciano v. Department of Transportation that federal employees called to active-duty service are entitled to such pay, dismissing OPM’s guidance that it has to be related to a national emergency.

“The Supreme Court could not have been clearer: These men and women earned this pay, and the law requires the government to make them whole,” Andrew Tutt, who argued Feliciano v. DoT and is now the reservists’ counsel, said in the statement. “They held up their end of the bargain. It is long past time for the government to hold up its own.”

The suit asserts that the government told the Supreme Court it would change its guidance twice but has not yet done so. The delay prompted multiple lawsuits, including one filed in August by an Army reservist and Department of Veterans Affairs attorney Marcus Colicelli against OPM.

The new suit also aims to recover compensation from an existing class action, Platero v. United States, which is being argued before the U.S. Court of Federal Claims. That lawsuit argues that USERRA claims brought before the Merit Systems Protection Board can have no statute of limitations.

The failure of troops to provide phone numbers for spouses in the Air Force Personnel Accountability and Assessment System, however, can carry dire consequences. Chief of Space Operations Gen. Douglas Scheiss recalled an incident in which he and his wife, Debbie, needed to reach a spouse whose husband had died in Syria.

But when they called the number on file, the phone simply rang and rang. It was the number for the airman’s cell phone.

“The number we were calling [was wrong] because he didn’t want his wife’s number to be on something,” Scheiss said during a forum on military families at the Air & Space Forces Association annual conference in Oxon Hill, Maryland, on Wednesday. “We are the most connected people in the world … but when the time is needed to contact people … don’t take away that ability for a spouse to be connected.”

The Air Force is launching an effort to improve the service’s ability to collect accurate contact information for spouses and provide it to units’ Key Support Program, the Air Force’s volunteer portion of a command’s family readiness efforts similar to Navy ombudsmen or Marine Corps family readiness volunteers.

Key Support Liaisons facilitate communications between commands and families — and often serve as the social foundation for military families when units are deployed.

Volunteers are required to keep phone numbers and other personal information confidential under the Privacy Act, but the unit phone trees they are provided are only as good as the information in AFPAAS, explained Cindy Wilsbach, wife of Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Ken Wilsbach.

“We’ve asked them to do this and [Key Support Liaisons] have stood up and said they will, yet we haven’t equipped them by giving them the contact information for our families,” Cindy Wilsbach said.

“When this thing kicked off in February,” she said, referring to the Iran war, “I heard from people around the globe … ‘Cindy, their spouse is gone, and this spouse has heard from no one. No one has contacted her, no one has reached out to her.’ It wasn’t just one or two people. I heard it from a lot of people.”

The service has started distributing cards to unit leaders that explain how leaders — most likely unit first sergeants — can pull unit personnel lists from AFPAAS and provide a comprehensive recall roster to their Key Support Liaison.

The four-step effort involves identifying the need, collecting the contact information, maintaining a roster and providing it to the liaison on a regular basis.

The cards were created by Doniel Wolfe, a military family life counselor who holds a doctorate in counseling and is married to Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force David Wolfe.

Collecting and distributing accurate information on family contacts may sound simple, but it’s been a problem “for a very long time,” Cindy Wilsbach said.

“We’ve heard it at every single base we’ve visited … so we’re hoping, with Legal’s blessing, that this is the way forward, that we will arm KSLs with the power to actually do what we’ve asked them to do,” she said.

Connection with the command, as well as one another, is a cornerstone of readiness, Cindy Wilsbach added. She said the liaisons are a vital resource for making initial contact with new families, sustaining families when units are deployed and providing support in emergencies.

The senior leaders and their spouses urged personnel attending the conference to keep their spouses’ contact information updated in AFPAAS, with Chief Master Sergeant of the Space Force John Bentivegna saying it’s the responsibility of leadership to make sure that spouses feel included.

“How many spouses … are maybe just waiting for someone to reach out to them. The worst that could happen is you send a note or make a phone call, send a text or an email, and you don’t get an answer back … but this is where leadership comes in — you got in there, and you got to take care,” Bentivegna said.

A new GAO review found gaps at multiple stages of the Department of Defense Education Activity’s process for identifying and supporting students with specific learning disabilities, including screening, referrals, evaluations and instruction. GAO officials said those gaps can compound, affecting when students receive help and the quality of the services they receive.

“Those are gaps that, when you add them up, they multiply, and they have a compounding effect on when and the quality of services that students receive,” said Jennifer Gregory, a GAO assistant director who oversees part of the agency’s special education work.

About 5% of DODEA’s roughly 60,000 full-time K-12 students had an identified specific learning disability during the 2024-25 school year, and the number of students identified with such disabilities increased 29% from 2018-19 through 2024-25, according to the latest GAO report. About 10% of DODEA students received strategic instruction, which provides short-term, small-group academic support.

Specific learning disabilities include disorders such as dyslexia and dyscalculia that affect understanding language or performing mathematical calculations.

GAO examined DODEA schools in five of the agency’s nine districts, covering districts that serve 63% of DODEA students with identified specific learning disabilities. Investigators visited 11 schools and conducted 47 group interviews with teachers, administrators and other stakeholders. They also administered an opt-in online questionnaire to parents of DODEA students with specific learning disabilities.

Among the parents who responded to GAO’s questionnaire, 82 of 121 said the limited availability of DODEA resources to assess students, such as screening tools, was a challenge.

GAO found that at nine of the 11 schools, staff said they needed more or better screening tools to identify students who may need additional literacy or math support or special education. DODEA’s screening tools did not directly assess foundational phonics skills among elementary school students and were not available to all students.

GAO said those limitations make it difficult to identify students who are behind for their grade level, which is particularly important given DODEA’s highly mobile population. DODEA officials told GAO in July that the agency had procured universal screening tools for all grades and planned to begin administering them in late 2026.

GAO also found that DODEA cannot currently ensure that all students identified as needing additional literacy or math support to meet grade-level expectations receive the appropriate support.

At the high school level, some of that assistance is provided through strategic instruction classes, which are electives, according to GAO. That means a student identified as needing additional help may not necessarily receive it, said Jacqueline Nowicki, the GAO director who oversees the agency’s K-12 education work.

“Once it is determined that a kiddo does need support, there is not a way right now that DODEA can ensure that kids who have been identified for this kind of support actually get it,” Nowicki said.

GAO recommended that DODEA ensure all students identified as eligible for additional literacy or math support receive the necessary instruction. The recommendation remains open.

The review also found problems with referrals and evaluations.

GAO recommended that DODEA analyze why Student Support Teams reject referrals for students who may benefit from additional literacy and math support and identify special-education referrals rejected because of poor-quality or incomplete information.

In the 2024-25 school year, DODEA reported that 12% of special-education evaluations were not completed promptly, according to GAO. Ten of the 11 schools GAO visited identified timely identification and evaluation as a challenge. GAO recommended that DODEA analyze factors within its control that contribute to delays in the evaluation process.

At all 11 schools GAO visited, staff cited obstacles to helping students meet literacy and math goals, including limited access to student data and professional learning that did not always align with teachers’ roles. Of 44 strategic-instruction and special education teachers interviewed by GAO, 32 rated their professional-learning opportunities as “bad” or “very bad.”

Teachers were routinely asked to evaluate training they had already received but did not have a clearly understood opportunity to identify the training they needed going forward, Nowicki said.

GAO also found that teachers did not always receive the professional learning needed to use DODEA’s specialized reading interventions as intended.

GAO did not formally audit the transfer of individualized education programs during permanent changes of station as part of this review. But Nowicki said the issue has repeatedly surfaced in GAO’s broader work with DODEA and military families.

Parents have told GAO that records sometimes did not arrive at a child’s new school. Other parents said they hand-carried records but were unsure where to deliver them, she said. GAO has also heard from parents who said receiving schools did not immediately implement an existing IEP.

Nowicki said missing or delayed records can delay services or leave educators trying to reconstruct a child’s needs and prior services.

“It is not uncommon for parents to tell us, you know, I transferred to DODEA School from ABC Public School. My files didn’t show up,” Nowicki said. “Or my files I brought them with me and hand carried them and didn’t know who or couldn’t find who to give them to.”

School liaison officers can help military families coordinate so-called “warm handoffs” between schools, Nowicki said. But not every school has a liaison officer, and some parents do not know the service is available.

The latest review contains eight recommendations to the Defense Department, addressing screening, referrals, evaluation delays, teacher training and access to student data, as well as ensuring students identified as needing additional literacy or math support actually receive it.