Derek Dixon stood against the wall, tapped his right foot and wore a nervous smile.

His daughter, Ashley, walked slowly down the hall. She was in music theory class at Yelm High School when the office called: Her grandmother was there and needed to see her.

Ashley walked into the school’s cafeteria and looked to her left. Her eyes widened.

"Oh my god!" the 15-year-old sophomore screamed when she saw her father, a staff sergeant with the Washington National Guard’s 81st Brigade Combat Team. She sprinted toward him and jumped into his arms. Both cried as they held each other.

After eight months of long-distance e-mail and teary-eyed phone calls, dad and daughter were reunited Tuesday morning. Derek returned to Yelm a month before his expected two weeks of leave, and the 34-year-old single father had another surprise for his daughter: Because he landed a full-time job with a different National Guard unit, he wasn’t going to return to Iraq.

"I almost didn’t believe it when I saw him," Ashley said, then smiled at her dad.

"I thought you might do something like this."

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The Interstate Compact on Educational Opportunity for Military Children, which aims to streamline the process of military kids transferring to schools in different states, has been passed by both houses of the state legislature.

It's just waiting the signature of Gov. Chris Gregoire.

Here's a bit more information from Mark San Souci, the Department of Defense liasion who has worked tirelessly on this issue:

The House amendment struck the null & void clause for funding that was in the senate's original bill. The fiscal note will indeed be funded at $49,000 annually, out of the state budget.

As the seventh largest military state, our 29,000 active duty military school children, and activated guard/reserve member school children, will now join at least 14 other states (the compact is now on the governor's desk in Alaska, Maryland, and Hawaii, respectively, with other states to follow) as a compact state seeking a level playing field for the difficult school transition issues that arise when military families move from state to state while serving our nation. …

The effective date of the bill is 90 days after adjournment of the legislative session in which the bill is passed. Hence, July 25, 2009.