Leonardo Cano (11) serves as the recruitment officer of the Navy Junior Reserve Officers Training Corps (NJROTC). Despite his recruitment efforts, enrollment in the program continues to decline. Now, Cano said he is desperate for new recruits. The truth is that Westview is the only high school in PUSD with an NJROTC program, and its future is at stake.

“We need a minimum of 50 people to continue as an organization, and if we drop under that, they’ll give us a one-year notice to fix it,” Cano said. “We had 49 students on Feb. 1, so we needed one more person. Right now, we could get shut down in a year, which is pretty bad.”

Although Westview’s NJROTC unit has historically been small, Cano said that the new probation period is a frightening threat to the organization and the family that Cano has found within it.

Cano was a shy kid when he first joined the NJROTC unit at the end of his freshman year. Back then, the platoon of 52 students seemed to him like an assembly of hundreds. But, Cano said the welcoming environment in the unit encouraged him to open up. 

“NJROTC helped me come out of my shell a lot more,” Cano said. “If you’re looking to try something really unique and you want to meet some new people, because most of the people in this unit are very extroverted and a lot of fun, I definitely recommend NJROTC. There’re lots of programs that can help you open up, but this really worked for me and maybe it will work for you too.”

Captain Thomas Adams has been the teacher and captain of Westview’s NJROTC unit since 2017 and has seen, first-hand, the decrease in enrollment since 2021.

“It’s been a real struggle post-COVID,” Captain Adams said. “Pre-COVID, we averaged no less than 35-40 new cadets a year and the unit was around 90+. [Now,] we’re lucky to get 20 [recruits], which is around half of what we were used to. This year, [Westview received] 560 new freshmen. We only got 13.”

Like Cano, Commanding Officer Allison Hauw (12) joined NJROTC during her freshman year. Having competed in six different events at the NJROTC field meets, she said there’s an event for people of every interest.

“I’m on the Cyber Patriots team, so there’s cybersecurity if you’re interested in that,” Hauw said. “There are academic competitions and physical competitions with sit-ups, push-ups, and sprinting. There really is something for everyone in NJROTC.”

Recently, Hauw and Cano have been visiting middle schools, focusing on recruiting incoming freshmen. According to Cano, the lack of numbers in the platoon leaves many leadership roles empty, so new cadets are more likely to be promoted quickly.

“Underclassmen who might not be ready leadership positions have to be put there because there has to be someone to do it,” Cano said. “[Everyone’s] work might not amount to anything if NJROTC gets closed and that really sucks. They won’t be able to finish their high school career with this program that they’ve been part of for so long.”

Adams described the unit as a community that incorporates life lessons with physical exercise and academics, preparing students for Army, Naval, and Air Force Academies or any path beyond high school. 

“There’s no other class specifically designed to help you learn life lessons that will put you in good stead in the future,” Adams said. “I know that we learn how to wear uniforms and you see them marching, but this is a life lessons and skills class [for] learning how to do all the little things that are going to help you to manage your time better, have a plan, and think ahead in order to stay on track not only with what we’re doing but with all of your classes or any other sports. So, it would be a huge loss to not have the ability, should you choose to, to take a class that does that.”

Although Hauw is finishing the last of her four years with Westview NJROTC and plans to attend a traditional four-year college, she said she’s grateful for the connections she’s made along the way.

“I really found my people in NJROTC because it’s such a close-knit community,” Hauw said. “It’s an elective that you can take throughout your whole time [in high school] and you really bond with the people that are with you in the unit. That’s the biggest reason why I stayed.”