Saturday, March 23, 2013

Okaloosa County, Florida: District looks at how to sustain, expand aviation institute (DOCUMENT)

FORT WALTON BEACH — Monica Mammah loves planes.

She tried to consider other careers, but ultimately she knew her place was in the sky and set her sights on exploring it in college.

Then the Tampa resident came up to Fort Walton Beach for her best friend’s graduation from Choctawhatchee High School and learned about the aviation institute housed there.

“I thought, ‘Wow, this is exactly what I need,’ ” she said. “Fate brought me here.”

After thinking it through, she decided to jumpstart her career and moved to Fort Walton Beach to live with her best friend’s parents so she could enroll in the Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University Aviation Institute at Choctaw.

“It’s crazy that we have that level at high school,” said the 16-year-old, who hopes to attend the Air Force Academy and become a pilot.

While Monica’s story might be one of the more extreme since Okaloosa County started the aviation institute a decade ago, it illustrates exactly why one high school principal made it her mission to establish and then maintain it in spite of challenges through the years.

Today, the future direction of that program is uncertain and a principal and district are struggling with how best to keep it viable.

View a photo gallery of the institute. >>

Finding that spark

School board vice-chairwoman Cindy Frakes has always been a firm supporter of the aviation institutes at both Choctaw and Crestview high schools.

They’re a perfect fit for an area with two Air Force bases and have helped boost some students from average to extraordinary, Frakes said.

One student, for example, entered into the program with a 1.5 GPA. Rather than fail or quit, the student continued with the program and recently completed a master’s degree from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University (ERAU) in Daytona, she said.

“Sometimes, you just hit a spark,” Frakes said.

But various concerns have caused them to consider contracting with new universities twice in the past three years.

The board ended its long-term relationship with ERAU Daytona in the summer of 2010 after they were unable to reach an agreement on costs.

At the time, they opted to go with another branch of the college called Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University Worldwide, which had three local campuses: at Eglin Air Force Base, Hurlburt Field and in Crestview.

But it’s been a rough three years, and the board is once again looking into other options after seeing declining enrollment and issues with students passing certification tests they used to soar through, Frakes said.

“The program just went away,” Frakes said. “I don’t know what happened to it.”

Originally the board had considered going back into contract discussions with officials in Daytona, but during a recent board meeting they opted to give Superintendent Mary Beth Jackson leeway to negotiate a contract with the university she deems to be the best fit, whether that is one of the Embry-Riddle campuses or another one entirely, Frakes said.

View the contracts from 2004-07 »

View the contracts from 2008-2012 »

One thing is certain, though: The board is not ready to give up on the program that essentially started it all in Okaloosa County.

“To just throw it into the corner and have cobwebs grow on it is just wrong,” Frakes said.

The beginning

The aviation institute at Choctaw is one of the oldest CHOICE programs in the district.

It was conceived by the newly appointed principal Cindy Gates after she started looking for a program to propel her students well into their futures by high school graduation.

After attending countless meetings, and finding out where the jobs were, she opted to go forward with an aerospace program.

“What I knew was it fit in our community,” she said. “It all came back to aviation and engineering every time you turned around.”

With the Okaloosa County School Board and then-Superintendent Don Gaetz behind her, she established a relationship with one of the best-known aviation schools: ERAU Daytona.

The program not only provided students an unheard-of opportunity to explore aviation in high school but also a chance to earn a semester’s worth of college credit.

To help launch the program, Gates brought in a retired Navy commander named Leo Murphy and a former JROTC instructor at the high school named Rick Soria.

Soria, who didn’t meet ERAU’s rigorous standards for instructors, taught the high-school credit courses, while Murphy and other hand-selected instructors taught the college-level courses.

“We had them doing projects, building things,” Soria, who now oversees the Okaloosa STEMM Center, said. “The kids were challenged ... and they loved it.”

Among the students who entered the program that first year was a young man named Josh Daily, who had a passion for aviation.

“The first day I walked in there, I wanted to go to Embry-Riddle,” he said. “I wanted to be in the program.”

It wasn’t easy, by any means, he said, but he never wavered because he knew the work was his ticket into the sky.

“When you’re solving the problem and seeing its application, it’s all a little bit different,” he said.

By the time he graduated, he’d earned as many college credits as promised and was able to graduate from ERAU Daytona in three years.

He’s now working for the Federal Aviation Administration.

A new era

When Ron Garriga walked into Choctaw in August 2010, the aviation program had classrooms and equipment but no personnel. And that was a big problem since school was already in session and both students and parents had expectations about the educational opportunities they would receive.

It would take four weeks to pull together a new program and staff. In the interim, Garriga,the director of academic support for ERAU Worldwide in Fort Walton Beach, taught all the classes. Still, students said they didn’t notice a big difference.

“The quality certainly did not change,” said Derek Watson, who is now a senior and considering attending ERAU Daytona next fall.

Fast-forward three years and the program might not have the enrollment it had in the past, but that’s been deliberate to a point, according to current director Ken Fielder.

They’ve raised the GPA requirements compared to the Daytona model and always require two teacher recommendations for enrollment.

“I’d rather have smaller numbers and a quality classroom environment,” he said.

Students with a GPA of 2.8 or higher can apply to the program. People with lower GPAs might be able to get waivers on a case-by-case basis by proving with other data, such as FCAT scores, that they’re capable of succeeding in the college courses, Fielder said.

“We don’t want to put someone in these classes that isn’t ready for these classes,” Garriga added.

Another challenge has been the lack of interest in the field since careers as a pilot became less lucrative. The goal now, Fielder said, is to raise awareness that aviation is about more than just flying.

Neither Garriga nor Fielder denied that the program has gone through rough patches in the past few years, but they’re hopeful the board will give them another opportunity.

“We want them to know we have our act together, we have our curriculum together,” Garriga said. “They just need to trust us that we know what we’re doing.”

See the cost history and enrollment of the program with Embry Riddle »

 By the second semester of next school year, for example, they plan to offer a course in unmanned aerial vehicles in light of an expected local job trend.

 “We’ve got a plan for the next year,” Fielder said. “We’re buying the books.”

A future with questions

The only certainty right now is that the aviation institutes will not disappear from Okaloosa County.

Jackson is currently drawing up a contract to bring before the board. Her recommendation should appear in another month or so.

She said she couldn’t provide details but that “all the options are on the table.”

The bottom line for her is that the program is still feeding a job need in the area, so it needs to grow.
 
“If we see a demand, then we know that it is a program we can support,” she said.

Story and Photo:  http://www.nwfdailynews.com

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