AEROSTEM Academy receives five-year renewal
The AEROSTEM Academy in Yuba City was recently awarded a five-year renewal by the Sutter County Office of Education to continue its operations and plans to further expand its offerings.
School Director Kathy Smith-mcqueery said the process of having the academy renewed for an additional five years
required a demonstration of accountability, including showing student academic progress, how the school has implemented its original charter, and its financial solvency.
“It was a really great process of reflection for us, and also an opportunity for us to showcase our school,” Smith-mcqueery said. “(Sutter County Office of Education) staff reviewed the information and recommended a full renewal, so now we have five years to further develop our program, continue our accountability, and implement unique STEM fields that we are working on.”
The charter school has been operating independently for three years – prior to that, it was a program through CORE Charter School. The academy relocated to a facility at the Sutter County Airport in early 2020.
In addition to curriculum students would learn at public schools, the academy integrates science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) skills into all subject areas through the lens of aerospace. One main difference is the academy uses blended learning, so students are on campus four days a week, while Mondays they work from home doing activities away from campus.
Another difference is that it offers three Career Technical Education (CTE) pathways meant to help students in obtaining jobs or meet specific college entrance criteria. The academy’s three CTE pathways include aeronautical engineering (students construct an airplane), UAV/ drones (students work to get their commercial drone license), and a flight/space piloting program (students learn how to become a pilot).
“We just applied for a grant in partnership with CORE Charter School to allow for 15 students and staff to obtain a full pilot’s license by the end of next year,” Smith-mcqueery said.
Over the next five years, SmithMcqueery said, the hope is to get the academy’s ground school better situated to have students be able to obtain their full pilot license on-site, along with further building out its airport facility and a working hangar with classroom workshops located throughout.
“We will also be working on teacher development. We have excellent teachers but some don’t have pilot licenses yet, so we are sending those teachers through a lot of these trainings and they are becoming pilots, drone users and operators, and into other STEM fields to put that into their work,” Smith-mcqueery said.
The academy currently enrolls grades 6-11, though they plan to expand that next year to fifth grade and 12th grade.
“We are in open enrollment for next year. We are limited to 25 students and under for each class, but we can open additional classes if there is enough interest, so now is the time to get on the list,” Smith-mcqueery said.
For more information, visit www.aerostem.org or call (530) 742-2531.