Sandpoint High School will launch an Army Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps program this fall. It will be the second such program in the state. 

The program has already drawn interest from more than 80 students in the area. 

Bringing JROTC to Lake Pend Oreille School District has been a long time coming, said Kyle Omstead, the teacher tapped to lead the program. 

“One of the things I noticed is students were struggling and they were struggling with direction. They were struggling with self-confidence,” he said. “They were struggling with leadership skills.” 

He first had the idea years ago when he was working at the remote, Clark Fork High School, in hopes of getting students more engaged with school. But a district-wide survey discovered that of the 272 students who expressed interest in the program the vast majority attended Sandpoint High School. 

So about three years ago, Omstead applied to the army to start the program. 

There was a problem though, Omstead, 57, wasn’t ready to retire from the Army reserves, which was then a requirement to teach JROTC. The rules changed just months ago and Omstead was approved. 

“They’re awesome kids, they’ve just got to have a chance”

Omstead has spent almost 10% of his adult life in a combat zone.

He deployed to Iraq in 2003. He got out of the Army as a Captain in 2004 but re-enlisted in 2009. 

“I missed it,” Omstead said. “At the time, we were still having a lot of stuff going on in Afghanistan and Iraq, and I kind of felt like I was shirking my duties. So I was like, well, time to get back involved and do my part.” 

He deployed to Jordan and Syria in 2016, Afghanistan in 2020 and Kuwait in 2021. 

When not deployed, Omstead ran an engineering firm for 20 years. He travelled about 270 days a year working all over the globe.

Then in 2014, his son had an accident and Omstead wanted a job where he could spend more time at home. 

So he became a teacher and hasn’t looked back. 

He has since taught math, chemistry, carpentry, welding and engineering. It can be tough for the army to find a JROTC instructor that loves to teach, Omstead said, the job feels like it was made for him.

“They’re awesome kids,” he said. “They’ve just got to have a chance.”

Leadership and giving back

The JROTC program has two main components: coursework and extracurriculars. 

Omstead will teach five periods of JROTC, one for each grade level. Eighth graders are allowed to join JROTC if they are on the same campus as the high school, which is the case in Sandpoint. 

In class, students learn military history, first aid and navigation. They are encouraged, but not required to, participate in at least three extracurricular activities with the JROTC corps each year. 

Omstead plans to offer robotics, air rifle marksmanship, drone competitions and archery to start but there are a slew of other programs including the national fitness challenge and a Junior Cadet Leadership Challenge that operates as a two-week long summer camp. 

JROTC cadets can then compete with teams from other schools. 

The army pays for the materials needed for the extracurriculars, uniforms for the students, and half of Omstead’s salary. 

As students progress through the JROTC courses, they take on leadership roles, holding younger cadets accountable. 

“It’s not the instructors that are really the disciplinarians, it’s the senior cadets,” Omstead said. “Kids listen to kids a lot better than they listen to adults.”

Students are under no obligation to serve in the military if they sign up for JROTC. 

“There’s absolutely no obligation at this level,” Omstead said.

College ROTC programs typically have two years of unobligated membership before students are expected to commit to service. 

JROTC drew criticism in recent years when a New York Times investigation found that high school students, often in poor and rural areas, were being required to enroll in the program.

Omstead said he hopes students in Sandpoint’s JROTC program will learn leadership, communication, and resilience through the program, regardless of their future career.

“Sometimes it’s interesting to know what you don’t want to do before you make the big mistake of signing up for four years,” Omstead said.

The program looks great on college and scholarship applications and cultivates the soft skills that many employers in the trades are looking for, he said. 

The Sandpoint community has already shown excitement for the program with about 80 kids signed up so far, a dozen of whom are homeschoolers, Omstead said. 

The area is home to a large contingent of veterans who have been eager to volunteer to support extracurricular activities, Omstead said. He plans to create an advisory committee to help shape the program.