After more than 265 days deployed, the San Diego-based USS Abraham Lincoln is finally coming home. For roughly 5,000 sailors and Marines aboard the Lincoln, and the families who have spent months waiting for them, their homecoming will bring enormous relief.
Here in San Diego, we know these families are more than a headline. They are our neighbors, our friends, and students in our schools.
As a San Diego Unified School Board trustee, I see that responsibility up close. Our district serves nearly 8,000 military-connected students whose parents serve in the Armed Forces. At Hancock and Miller elementary schools in Murphy Canyon, nearly all students come from military families.
For these children, a parent’s deployment is not an abstract national-security mission. It’s a parent missing birthdays and school events and a child wondering when Mom or Dad will come home. And a spouse carrying the responsibilities of two parents while trying to maintain stability at home.
The Lincoln left San Diego in November for what was expected to be a roughly seven-month deployment. Instead, the mission was extended as operational demands changed. Families and lawmakers have raised concerns about conditions aboard the ship, including food and water supplies, sanitation, and the mental-health strain of an exceptionally long deployment without a port call. The Navy has defended the crew’s welfare and emphasized that the mission was extended because it was required.
Those realities can coexist. Our sailors can be extraordinarily resilient and still deserve better support. A mission can be strategically necessary and still impose a profound cost on the people asked to carry it out.
That is why President Trump’s recent comment that the Lincoln had not been deployed for “nearly long enough” was so painful to hear. Reasonable people can debate deployment timelines and military strategy. But when families are worried about the physical and emotional well-being of loved ones who have spent months at sea, they deserve to hear their sacrifice acknowledged too.
The Lincoln’s homecoming cannot be the end of the conversation.
For San Diego families, a ship returning to port does not instantly return life to normal. The strain of a prolonged deployment can follow service members home. Children may have spent months adapting to the absence of a parent. Spouses may have spent months carrying responsibilities alone. Families need time, support and stability before everyone feels okay again.
Military children are remarkably resilient. But resilience should never become an excuse for asking them to absorb more hardship than necessary.
That’s why support for military-connected students is so important. In San Diego Unified, we have made student wellness a central priority because children cannot learn at their best unless they feel safe, connected and supported. We provide dedicated support for military-connected students, including military family life counselors, and school-based programs designed around the unique challenges these children face.
At schools like Miller and Hancock, those supports are not an extra. They are essential. But our schools cannot do this work alone. It is time for Congress to fully fund Impact Aid — the federal program designed to help school districts educate children connected to military bases and other federal property. Impact Aid exists because the federal government does not pay local property taxes on federal land, even though communities surrounding military installations must educate the children who live there.
The program has been chronically underfunded for decades. San Diego Unified estimates that congressional appropriations cover only about 42% of the Impact Aid funding it would be entitled to if the program were fully funded.
That matters here. San Diego is one of the nation’s largest military communities. When the federal government asks military families to sacrifice for our country, it should also ensure that the public schools educating their children have the resources to support them.
The Lincoln’s sailors have done what their country asked of them. Their families have, too.
As the ship makes its way home, we should welcome these sailors and Marines with gratitude. We should give their families the support they need to recover and reconnect. And we should make sure the schools serving their children have the resources to help them thrive.
Supporting our military means more than sustaining the mission. It means sustaining the people who make the mission possible, and all the local families who stand behind them.
Shana Hazan is a San Diego Unified School Board trustee and vice chair of the California Children & Families Commission.
