East Texas
FLYING HIGH
Cleveland ISD CTE students take to the skies by Mary Ann Lopez
W
hile it might seem that flying a plane is as easy as setting a straight course toward a destination, students in Cleveland ISD’s Aviation Tango Flight Aerospace and Engineering program know such thinking could lead to sticky situations. “We have to calculate ground speed; we have to calculate air speed; we have to calculate for magnetic deviation,” said Cleveland High School senior Maria Garcia, an inventory manager for the program. “We have to calculate everything that provides us with a safe and secure flight.” Cleveland ISD is located about 50 miles northeast of Houston and has about 12,711 students enrolled. The program’s students have the chance to earn a commercial drone license, a private pilot certificate, credit toward the general test required to earn an airframe and powerplant license, and possibly most impressive — to build not one, but two airplanes. They take the math and science learned in the classroom and apply it to real-world situations. Cleveland ISD’s CTE Aviation and Engineering students shared their experience in March at TASB’s Governance Camp in Galveston. As freshmen, students learn the basics of aviation, and they are exposed to the different career pathways available to them, Garcia said. As sophomores, they work toward their Part 107 Civil License — a commercial drone license that allows students to use their skills through drone work, which means they can earn money and be exposed to career opportunities. Students learn about the different types of drones and see the complexities, so they better understand the field, she said. They also learn about drone mechanics, safety, and regulations.
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Learning by doing To be a better drone pilot, students need to understand all aspects of flying drones, said senior Kevin Velasquez, the program manager. “Yes, you can go buy one, and that’s fine,” he said. “But when you build your own drone it gives you a sort of connection, you give more passion to it, because it’s like, ‘I did that.’” Once students have passed the test and have their drone license, they can move on to the private pilot ground school, Garcia said. “We actually have an FAA-approved curriculum that our mentor teaches us, which allows us to get so many great aspects and get the first big step into what being a pilot is,” she said. “We learn aerodynamics; we learn instruments — what actually is there in a cockpit. And obviously when we teach our students, we also want to be able to tie it back to their core classes. Our study materials actually
| June/July 2026 | issuu.com/tasb-org
tie back a lot to science and math.” The students have a chief flight instructor who comes to the school to mentor students, Velasquez said. The flight instructor, who teaches the students to fly for free, must sign off so that they can be issued a student license, which helps them with their flying. “This gives our students a huge advantage in their pilot careers,” Garcia said. “After students get their pilot license, they are allowed to use our flight simulators — our FAA certified flight simulators — that actually allows our students to fly and log hours toward their private pilot license.” Using simulators takes away some of the real risks, while offering students access to a variety of scenarios that might be encountered in the air, Velasquez said. “You know when you are up there anything can happen,” he said. “So, having a sim is a good way for kids [to learn], so