A new aviation academy will be available to students at the Frank Kumor Career Center beginning in the 2024-2025 school year. This half-day program is funded by a $2 million grant received by the district from the Department of Defense Education Activity (DoDEA).
Assistant Superintendent Robert Moore, who helped secure the funding for this program and worked out many of the logistics, said that the program was in part inspired by the nearby air force base. He said that the proximity to Offutt and prevalence of aviation careers made its addition seem fitting.
“There’s lots of careers in aviation,” Moore said. “Not everyone in aviation is a pilot. There’s engineers—they are mechanics that are in aviation; there are people who fly drones; there are people who are camera people who have to know how to use drones. So there’s a lot of different career possibilities in aviation or in aviation-adjacent types of work.”
Moore explained that the program will dive into aviation through different lenses, teaching many of the basics required to fly and incorporating hands-on experiences into the curriculum. Robert Condrey will be the instructor, and he said that his extensive experience in the field will help set up the students for success.
“Going through the program they’re going to learn a lot of different things that are all required learning to actually get a pilot’s license,” Condrey said. “Coming out of the program, one of the things that they will get is essentially the sign off to be able to go take the actual FAA written test to be a pilot. And so to do that, you’ve actually got to learn a lot about weather, a lot about mechanics, a lot about math, a lot about a variety of different things.”
Moore said that in the process of setting up the program, he looked to other schools for inspiration. Through them, he was exposed to different curriculums and experiences, allowing him to include what he thought was most important for the Kumor Career Center’s facilities. For example, Lincoln North Star High School was building a hangar on their facilities.
“They were actually going to have in their hangar an actual aircraft that kids can have hands-on experience with,” Moore said. “Of course they’re not going to be flying it, but they can see it. And so that was some inspiration for us as well, and we plan on having an actual aircraft inside the facility, inside the classroom space.”
Junior Jaylord Cagape said that he wants to apply to the program, hoping to possibly become a pilot someday. He’s a part of Air Force JROTC at West, a co-curricular class which Moore said he hopes to have representation from in the program.
“What really stood out to me was the pilot stuff, obviously,” Cagape said. “And then there’s also stuff with learning how to pilot drones, and then taking into account navigation as well. Because being a pilot, of course, you have to be good at navigating.”
Condrey said that a lot of his motivation comes from being inspired by his students. He previously taught at an aviation program at Burke and said that although he’s retired from the aviation field, he has really enjoyed teaching it.
“When suddenly you can see the light come on in their heads, that just really warms my heart,” Condrey said. “And so that really motivates me to work with kids, just seeing them come kind of from the novice level, and then suddenly get some skills that we’re actually able to put to use. And they’re complicated skills. And so seeing people actually being able to achieve that just really warms my heart.”
