STEM: Stopping area’s ‘brain drain’
and they start to develop an interest.”
Mahurin said they are currently appealing a recent Yuba City Unified School District board’s decision to deny its charter petition to the Sutter County Office of Education. The impending closure of the academy was spurred by a 2016 appellate court decision which stipulated nonclassroombased charter school resource centers must operate within the boundaries of its authorizing school district.
In Aerospace’s case, its current location on the 900 block of G Street in Marysville, falls outside the boundaries of its current governing body, the Camptonville Union Elementary School District.
For staff, the 30-plus students enrolled and the dozens of high school level participants, closure could have a drastic impact on a program that is not only unique to the Yuba-sutter region, but also provides a level of technical training not typically available to students this young.
“I want to be a mechanical engineer and this (program) has given me more than enough information and experience I need toward The CORE Aerospace STEM Academy building in Marysville.
that field,” Foster said. “Having that hands on work, building an actual airplane and learning all the mechanics, I’ll be a step ahead when I go to college.”
Dave Mccreary, certified aviation instructor, said Foster was just a typical seventh grader going through the motions of education, but that this program clicked off something in his head which changed the one-time class clown, into a class leader.
Kaleb Robinson and Amber Haag, both firstyear students with the program, have also experienced the “click” Mccreary spoke of, whether in the classroom, the school’s flight simulator or the various field trips the program takes.
“It has been challenging, but in a good way,” Robinson said. “They have so many cool things that other schools do not have. You get to see how many different career fields there are in aviation. It is not just airplanes, but drones, engineering and so much more.”
“I went here looking for a challenge and more social activity,” Haag said. “I find both of those here. I like all that geeky stuff… this is just beyond my expectations.”
Though the program’s main purpose is to channel kids into career fields they may have never considered possible, Mccreary also points to the program as helping to stop the region’s “brain drain,” which refers to the exodus of highly-educated individuals, typically with higher incomes.
“We have a great group of kids from all different walks of life who have turned themselves into something else they didn’t know they had,” Mccreary said. “They get new skill sets and they get encouraged, excited and they say to themselves, ‘Oh, there is a bigger world out there,’ and so they leave this greater Marysville and Yuba City area and never come back…how do we bring this back to our community and continue to enhance what we have here?”
With close proximity to Beale Air Force Base, two regionals airports and the increased role technology plays in the agriculture sector, Mahurin said industry experts quickly took notice of the program.
“Just by starting that conversation with industry experts, you see how willing they are to participate, volunteer and provide their level of expertise,” Mahurin said. “We wouldn’t be doing this program without that relationship with industry experts. There has been a lot of buy in and that has been one of the things that is so rewarding.”