Stall High School to open academy

The benefits spurred by Boeing's expansion in the Lowcountry will be tangible to Charleston County students this fall with the opening of a new aeronautics academy on the Stall High School campus.

The company that's opening a massive airline assembly facility in North Charleston has given the district a $50,000 grant to train teachers for this new program, which likely will focus on aircraft assembly technology and airframe and aircraft maintenance technology.

"This is a way for us to begin to get to know the community more deeply," said Angel Ysaguirre, director of Boeing's global community investing. The company plans to hire an employee for Charleston to focus on and do more of this kind of community engagement, but this initial proposal "made a lot of sense for us," he said.

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District officials don't know yet how much this new program will cost or the exact courses to be offered, but they've put together a steering committee to flesh out those details. Representatives from Trident Technical College and the InterTech Group are among those who will lend their expertise as to what the academy should encompass, and they have researched some successful out-of-state aeronautical programs. Potential courses include introduction to aviation, aviation sciences and aircraft materials and hand tools.

"This is a new area for us, and it's a new area for the school district, so we really need to have some expert opinion and guidance," said Lou Martin, the district's associate superintendent for high schools.

The goal is to provide students with enough training so they could earn a certification by the end of the program or go on to a two- or four-year program in aeronautics. Boeing wanted the academy to be available to more than just one school, so the aeronautics program will be open to any student in the district and, eventually, the region, Martin said. School Superintendent Nancy McGinley expects student demand for the academy to be high, and she hopes to replicate it in each of the county's four geographic zones.

A handful of district schools, such as Wando High School and Garrett Academy, offer some aeronautics courses but nothing as extensive as what the new program at Stall High will have. The school's new building in North Charleston will open this fall and have a large room dedicated to this career academy. The $50,000 Boeing grant will be used to train a cadre of instructors so more than one person knows how to teach the courses, Martin said.

Martin would like to see more district high schools offer programs that would support other fields related to Boeing's expansion, such as logistics and transportation, so students can be trained and better prepared for the future, he said.

Ysaguirre said Boeing provides grants in every community in which it has a sizable employee presence, and, in terms of education, it focuses on funding the areas of teacher training, leadership training and curriculum development. The company is a strong supporter of public education, and it tends to work closely with local school districts to understand their strategies and support those, he said.

Boeing tends to get behind instructional efforts tied to math and science, but most of its grants don't have a specific aeronautical link, he said.

Reach Diette Courrégé at 937-5546 or dcourrege@postandcourier.com.