Mr. Micheal Greene is not just the IHS and IMS band director. He’s also a veteran of the National Guard and the Military Family Liaison for the Independence Middle School and Independence High School. On Wednesday September 10th, 2025, Independence High School was recognized by the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce for its “awareness and support of military families, students, and veterans in our community” Greene explained. To earn that distinction, he and the district needed to host and participate in training and military-honoring events.
Greene applied for this award in the fall of 2024 by training to identify students with military families that require support, then learning how to provide it. After the middle school applied, the Independence Board of Education passed a resolution in the fall of 2023 declaring their support of military families. In addition, the Independence Staff also had to go through training to acknowledge the military in the district.
Independence has also hosted events to honor military members including the football game spotlighting the National Guard the fall of 2024 and the band’s participation in the city-wide Veterans Day events. In the future, Greene plans to set up an event during April, the month of the military child.
Greene set up the Independence Military Family Resources webpage with the names of people to reach out to for help, as well as Greene’s contact information. After all of these events and to-dos, Independence was finally recognized at the Northeast Regional Fall Conference for the Ohio School Board Association for its efforts to support students with immediate family members in the military.
IHS Principal Mike Janatovich, who also attended the conference, explained that his “role as the building principal… is just being supportive of the initiative. I am truly a believer that a person like Mr. Greene is a leader” and he envisions this program being highly successful since Mr. Greene is the leader.
Separately, his specific responsibilities include arranging a substitute teacher when Mr. Greene leads the Veterans Day assembly, possibly creating a new bell schedule for that day, and coordinating an assembly or event recognizing military personnel and support.
He hopes the district may be more attentive and prepared to support students who need aid, unlike how when he first arrived at Independence, when he discovered that student in the band had a parent deployed, and yet no one was aware or offering support, especially “after going through the situation myself and observing it happen to one of my own students, I felt there was no way we couldn’t initiate a program in independence to make sure students don’t keep going through these situations without support, at least alone.”
Greene was determined to lead a better community for students in need, unlike his time at school, because he remembers being without support when his father was deployed to Washington, D.C, and part of the security team in the Pentagon. His father’s deployment was extended because it was of “national importance”, but after he completed his deployment, Greene explained that he’s “pretty sure my brother didn’t know who our dad was anymore, because he was too young when he left, which was rough”.
Greene’s vision is for the program to expand so that our district is more invested in the students with loved ones who are actively serving. This includes anyone in the National Guard Reserves, active duty, or deployed siblings. The steps he will take include: identifying families in need, providing them with support, then eventually putting together events to show our support as a community.
Lastly, Greene would like those reading this article to know that they may reach out to him if they are aware of people needing support while their family member is deployed or actively serving, even though not every family needs support. Nevertheless, he is “here to help students and families by navigating school and student wellbeing during family military service”. Ultimately, he looks forward to “build[ing] a strong community of military service members in Independence”!
