Shutdown cancels sports games and dances for students at military-base schools

Students who frequent schools exploited at the Pentagon on or near military bases are among those who feel the effects of the government’s closure, which started just after midnight on Wednesday and will leave certain federal employees without partially closed payroll checks and national paries.

The education activity of the Ministry of Defense, or Dodea, which operates 161 schools on or near military bases worldwide, has interrupted all extracurricular activities, including sports, for more than 67,000 students.

Dylan McDonald, a 17-year-old senior and co-captain of his football team at the Fort Campbell army in Kentucky, fears that he was able to play the last match of his career in high school after the government closed all the extracurricular programs. He and his mother fear that the coming matches, including the district tournament next week can harm his chances of being recruited to play at university.

“I took countless hours and blood, sweating and tears in this area, and I cannot end properly depending on something that is uncontrollable for myself and my teammates and our families, but who always affect us directly, is really devastating,” said Dylan about the impact of closure.

To further complicate things, the missing of the tournament could also cost him a place in the local team of all the districts of this year, a list of best players he has been one of the last two seasons.

Dylan and his mother Jennifer McDonald are among the eight parents and students of the schools of Dodea who explained to NBC News how the closure of the government affects them, describing the cancellations of sports and games, as well as early school tutoring and theatrical productions.

Katie Fox, whose husband is a retired navy, said that the return dance of her 15-year-old son at the Stuttgart high school in Germany was this weekend. They have already paid tickets, his outfit and made donations to help support the event. Then, due to the closure, it was postponed to later this month – assuming a The financing bill is adopted by then.

She said she was frustrated, because the congress could adopt a targeted credit bill To allow the extracurricular activities to continue.

“It’s my greatest frustration,” she said. “I know there is a solution, but it’s as if we are not heard.”

Fox added that athlete students from Dodea schools abroad are particularly affected when sports games are canceled, because, unlike the United States, they can only compete with other Dodea schools, which means that there are generally fewer games overall.

Maribel Jarzabek, whose husband is in the Air Force and based in Belgium, said that his daughter Cassie, junior at the Lycée à dodea, Only six cross-country games a year before meeting the championship, compared to the Cross-Country teams of American schools, who have about eight to 10 games before the championships.

This means that Cassie, who is privileged to win the European Cross-Country Dodea European Championship, said her mother, is less likely to impress university recruiters than students with longer seasons and more likely to compete.

Cassie said she was afraid that the championships, which are scheduled for later this month, could also be assigned, which could be devastating for her because they are the most important for recruiters.

“As a military child, we already have to face the pressures to move every two years and start completely fresh, not have friends,” said Cassie. “So that’s another thing added to adversity that we must already overcome. It really hurts.”

Crystal Noga – whose Aiden Ward son is a senior and co -captain of the Fort Campbell High School football team alongside Dylan McDonald – said that in the past, she has sent videos of her children playing sports to their father when he was deployed abroad, and now some children for children could also be deprived of that.

She said that if the team was forced to lose their first district match against their rivals next week, she will have no other chance of seeing Aiden playing football in high school.

“Not only is it taken from them, but it took me as a parent,” said Noga. “Once he left high school, that’s it. They are thrown into the real world. So you also remove my last opportunity to see my child being a child.”

In the meantime, team captains like Dylan, Aiden and Cassie must organize the practices of their teams by themselves, and they must emphasize that they are not compulsory, said their parents. At the same time, most of their parents live on the pay check that they received this week until the government adopts an expenditure bill.

While the Democrats and the Republicans of the Congress blame themselves for the closure, the parents who spoke with NBC News all shared a similar feeling: they do not care about the party in fault – they want this to be fixed for their children.

“If you cannot reach an agreement, make the burden of the life of others, be it their pay check, whether it is sport, whether it is something, is absolutely unfair,” said Noga.