Defense communities’ leaders have access to well-established DoD grant programs to improve and support their military-connected school systems. The educational programs facilitated by resources from DoDEA and DoD STEM have an existing track record of making a significant impact on access to national initiatives (e.g., FIRST Robotics, NMSI CRP and Project Lead the Way), as well as improving overall education quality and academic performance. This briefing will illuminate how defense community and installation leaders can engage to drive improvements in overall education quality.