I will throw my two cents into the hat....as a (five year, UGH) regional FO and an instructor at my airline, I say go for the ground school position.
You get a good rep knowing your stuff and meeting all of the right people and you will have a much greater chance of getting picked up than you will through the regional pipeline. There isn't too much movement these days and there won't likely be for a long time. Upgrade would take you awhile and there you are sitting as an FO logging SIC watching the freshness of your valuable PIC time go bye bye....Plus, the type rating is priceless!
In the reserves you will still fly and I imagine it won't take you too long to make AC, right? So there you go again with the PIC time building, albeit it slower than you would like. Besides, regionals treat you like crap for the most part and the pay is dog doo.
Secondly, I would go full time reserves if you don't take the ground job. Once you build those kind of hours that you mentioned, I hope that you would be able to bypass the regionals altogether and hit Southwest, Jetblue, or Fed Ex. They LOVE military guys.
Good luck! Maybe you can walk in MY resume one day!
