Irving Challenges Military Students to Remember Them Always
Challenge coins are a familiar part of military culture. They may be presented to a service member for a special achievement, or exchanged during visits. They may be used to help tie service members with their branch or unit.
Irving Middle School staff wanted to recognize their military-connected students. They designed their own military coin, which they present to military students who are leaving Irving for a new school.
Meg Gollinger, director of student services at Irving, attended a Military Child Education Coalition conference to learn about some of the challenges of military-connected students. There is a large population of students at Irving with parents in the military. Gollinger was interested in finding a way to “recognize these students who have sacrificed so much with all their moves that they’ve had to make for their family,” she said. “We wanted to give them something to take with them to remember us by.”
Gollinger talked with the school’s technology and engineering teachers Peter Brown and Michael Kiernan to share her idea. They worked with a couple of students to design the challenge coin and produce a template. Gollinger researched the history of the challenge coin as she wanted to make sure students seeing the presentation at Irving would be able to understand what the coin represented.
Brown worked with Gollinger and the student designers to create a design to produce laser-cut coins out of acrylic. The coin features the Washington Irving logo surrounded by all the branches of the military.
Explaining how the coin is produced, Brown said, “What [the printer is] doing right now is it's going through and it's engraving all of the solid, filled-in section. You can see it kind of going line by line all the way down. And then it's going to go through and do some little detail edging just to make that logo stand out a little bit. And then it'll take a pass around the entire outside and cut it all out for you.”
When they distribute the coins, Brown says he thinks it’s letting kids know, “Hey, we appreciate you being here. We know you have to move every two years.” But, “here at Irving, we appreciate you. We remember you being here. Good luck. Remember us always.”
Irving has been a Purple Star School since 2022 and about 20% of the student population is military-connected.
“We were really excited to recognize and honor our students,” said Principal Cindy Conley about the challenge coins. “Sometimes we were a very short stop on many travels. We want to make sure that they didn't see Irving as just another stop on the map, but that we were really grateful that they were here. We don’t want our students to leave without something to show that we really appreciate their sacrifice, and we will remember them. And hopefully they will remember us by taking this coin with them.”
The coins are easy to replicate and inexpensive to produce. Principal Conley appreciates how the challenge coin ceremony is quick, and it’s completed in class, in front of a student’s peers.
“Other kids are seeing that we are recognizing the sacrifices of our military families,” she said. “We recognize that they have come in with a lot of challenges — moving, changing curriculum, meeting new friends, coming into an unfamiliar community. But at the end, when they were leaving, we showed them we are grateful that they were here.”
Evelyn Olsen, an Air Force-connected student, reflected on how service people receive challenge coins as part of doing their job. “I think it's kind of cool that I get one, too. I'm part of the military, because my parents are.”
Gollinger is currently working on reapplying for Irving to be a Purple Star school this year (schools must reapply every three years). They are looking at ways to include student ambassadors in the exit ceremonies, and also talking to other FCPS schools about the coin project.
