§2035 Flexibility in Authorities for Management of Programs and Units

Summary

If a school system tells a military department it plans to shut down a Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (JROTC) unit, the military must offer to convert that unit to a National Defense Cadet Corps (NDCC) unit instead of closing it. The military department leaders may also try new ways to hire and pay JROTC instructors, even if other rules would block those changes. Examples include allowing well‑qualified noncommissioned officers with a bachelor’s degree to be hired as senior instructors without a waiver, allowing a single instructor to start a unit, letting instructors do other school jobs at small schools, and paying some instructors on a 10‑month instead of a 12‑month basis. The military must give regional JROTC directors at remote rural schools more freedom to use travel funds. The Secretary of Defense must standardize JROTC program data and require each school with a unit to use its National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) identification code.