... If you build an airplane, students will come to class
Comment By Elizabeth RobertsRecord Staff Writer
By Elizabeth RobertsRecord Staff Writer
STOCKTON  -  Fifteen years ago, Stephen Foster stared out at a bunch of bored students in a Franklin High woodshop class and had an epiphany. Warehoused in the class because they were failing or because no one knew what to do with them, they didn't want to build cutting boards, and Foster didn't want to teach cutting boards. So he told them, "We're going to build an airplane." A real, live gravity-defying craft capable of actually flying. Suddenly, his class attendance rate went from 60 to 95 percent. They didn't know they were learning physics, algebraic formulas and thrust, drag, lift and weight. They only knew, when they mounted a weed-eater's motor on the plane, topped it off with a maple propeller and proudly fired it up, they had achieved success. For some, for the very first time. That plane now hangs on the wall at Weber Institute of Applied Science and Technology's Aviation Through Engineering hangar, where an open house Tuesday drew dozens of students and community visitors to learn more about the two-year-old program's innovative path to advanced engineering studies. Students in the program will do everything from fabricating aircraft parts to building a biplane that can reach speeds of 90 miles an hour. "All these kids around here, how many of them really think they can be a pilot? Or work on an airplane?" Foster said. "In their mind, being a pilot, being in aviation, is a fantasy. It's something that rich white people do for a hobby." That's a misperception the longtime teacher is committed to changing. The airline industry is projected to lose a third of its work force in the next 10 years to retirement, Foster said, and "they know they're going to need to reach out to underrepresented groups, different economic groups." The Stockton Unified School District is making a concerted effort to equip students with these kinds of skills to meet the demands of the work force, which are critical to driving and growing the local economy, said Ward Andrus, director of career and technical education for SUSD. The aviation program at the 14-year-old specialty school is a key component of that effort, and Ward was instrumental in helping Foster get his 15-year dream off the ground, so to speak. On Tuesday, the program announced a $10,000 grant from Lowe's Stores to provide tools and other supplies to further the kinds of hands-on learning that takes place in the shop, which is filled with donated planes procured through the tireless networking of Build a Plane's Lyn Freeman as well as a skeletal wood airplane frame that gives students a true inside look at the mechanics of how a plane works. Industry interest in young workers skilled in such jobs stretches all the way to Travis Air Force Base, which sent a representative Tuesday to show support to the aviation program  -  and get an early look at some of its top students. In a field where men hold nearly three-quarters of the so-called STEM jobs in science, technology, engineering and math, students such as Karla Barragan and Amanie Gaber, both 16-year-old juniors at Weber, are a welcome sign that the trend is shifting. Barragan, a student in Weber's Technology Academy who is also president of SkillsUSA for California and dreams of attending Stanford University to study law, traces her engineering interest back to her childhood, wondering what went into creating things like bridges and buildings. "I want to know why, how," said the teen, who would use Legos to build and understand just how things work. "I thought, instead of just asking these questions, I might as well know." Her parents are so committed to her education at Weber they drive her each day to the downtown campus from her home near Roberts Island in the Delta. "We need more girls in the engineering field. It's not just a man's field. We could all do it. We are all capable of doing the same things." Gaber emphatically agrees and is hoping events like Tuesday's help recruit more students to all of the tech academies at Weber. Gaber's been to nine different schools  -  but Weber, where she's been in the Health Academy since her freshman year, is a keeper, she says, and she's thankful for the path that brought her there. Born in the U.S. to her Yemeni father and American mother, she spent her early years in Yemen, where there were few opportunities for this kind of study, and didn't realize her passion to pursue anesthesiology until her family was forced to return because of the civil war. Closing the skills gap is paramount, she says, and she is working hard in her role as state vice president with SkillsUSA "to ensure America has a skilled work force." Supporting such goals is the aim of those who have partnered with Weber's program or helped to make it a reality, including the Virginia-based Build A Plane, which has donated 200 airplanes over 11 years to high schools across the nation; Michael Perez with the Youth Eagles Aviation and Space Academy; SUSD board Trustee David Varela; former astronaut Jose Hernandez's Reaching for the Stars Foundation, and Rep. Jerry McNerney, D-Stockton. Creating internships and scholarships in aviation is next, Foster said  -  anything to steer local businesses into hiring local workers and away from recruiting in states where vocational education has held a higher priority in the past decade. "They're paying them for the jobs our kids should be doing." Contact reporter Elizabeth Roberts at (209) 546-8268 or . Follow her on Twitter @eroberts209. By Elizabeth RobertsRecord Staff Writer