[Gentle happy music] - Six times a year families gather at Stuart Mesa School for lunch on the lawn.

It's a big day for students they get to eat with their parents, many of whom are on lunch break from nearby Camp Pendleton, Marine Corps base.

- Stuart Mesa is a very unique school.

We are located on Camp Pendleton.

We are one of three schools that Oceanside Unified School District has here on Camp Pendleton.

We are unique because 100% of our students have families living on a base.

[Sounds of kids and teacher playing] - Principal Heffernan grew up here in Oceanside, a coastal town in San Diego County with a large military presence.

Stuart Mesa was the first school in Oceanside Unified to be designated as a purple star school from the California Department of Education.

Now more than 40 schools in the state have the designation recognizing their ability to meet the needs of children of military personnel.

- Military families have very unique needs because of their moving, because of deployments.

A student who is in military on average moves six times before they graduate from high school.

It's a lot of stress on a family.

- Fifth grader, Levi knows what it's like to change schools.

His father is in the Marine Corps, mid school year they move from Colorado to California.

- It was kind of hard because their, their school year is a bit longer than ours and they have a bunch of different things that my class didn't do.

Yeah, I had a lot of friends back in Colorado and leaving 'em was like one of the hardest things I've ever done.

- Military personnel don't have complete control on when they move, so oftentimes we see students who may come at the beginning of the year, which is the optimal time to start in a new environment.

It can also come spread out through the rest of the year where learning may have looked very different from what they came from.

The other part of that is when they move state to state, there's different standards.

So what's taking place in San Diego as far as the learning in December may look very different from that in Oklahoma at the same time.

- Hey girls, I like your matching shirts.

We all got our purple on today.

Wonderful.

Let's go talk over here for a little bit.

Okay.

- Rachel Rubio is one of two school counselors at Stuart Mesa.

She understands the unique circumstances of military families.

It's her job to support students academically and emotionally.

- I know sometimes when we don't have our loved one here today, it makes it a little hard, but you know what?

We're surrounded by so many people that really care for us here and I'm really happy that you're here today.

When we get some new students, they come in from different states, all sorts of different areas, different countries, and sometimes the academics like might be a little bit ahead, maybe a little bit behind and so I work closely with the teachers to create plans to support the child and enhance their learning.

- Deployments are also difficult for students who may have a parent sent overseas during the school year.

Stuart Mesa provides support throughout the deployment and during the reunification period, which may require time off from school to reconnect with their family.

- So me and my husband met in Bahrain in 2013 when we were both stationed out there and then we got married in 2014 when Cameron came along and we moved to Hawaii from there.

And then from Hawaii we moved here.

- Heather and her two children.

Cameron and Harper say that having a supportive was crucial.

When the children's dad was deployed for nine months to the Pacific region, - We sort of had some days at school where we had some like breakdowns about missing our dad a lot.

Our dad was gone for that long of a time.

We really missed him a lot and just like the three of us at a table sort of found a little bit empty, but once the nine months were back, I, we were super happy to be with him.

- During her dad's deployment, Cameron says the school counselors checked in with her twice a week just to talk.

- It was really big.

Like if we didn't have Miss Holly and Miss Rubio and everybody else here at the school, we would not have survived the deployment.

And it's a very cool atmosphere that you have so many people that actually understand what you're going through and are so willing to help you.

- It's very challenging as the things that occur on at their home, they trickle into the school system.

And so having parents that are deployed, that really affects the students here and their emotional wellbeing.

And so our priority is making sure that they are feel seen and heard.

- Other ways the school makes sure that students feel seen and heard is by holding events with ties to their military parents like lunch on the lawn.

- It also shows their their children, this is a safe place that we respect this place and that we want you to feel safe and that you can be their extended family.

For us, we also do a homecomings where the family member coming back will do a homecoming at the school and surprise, they're dependent here at on campus.

We partner with our, our our military to do the fitness challenge where they have the Marine Corps come up and they set a whole fitness field up and they have the kids run through it to see what it's like for their parents.

So there's these great opportunities to engage with our community and allow our families to ha experience more than they that they possibly thought before.

That this really is a safe place.

This really is a place that we care about them and that we can support them when someone that they love is not at home.

- And I think the most amazing thing about this is it's not just the military connected students that we got better at taking care of.

It was all of our students.