Greenville Technical Charter High School recently became the first Greenville County school to be awarded a $231,573 Appalachian Regional Commission Grant for its Aircraft Owners and Pilot Association STEM curriculum.
The school plans to use the funds to update the school’s infrastructure and technology, which will allow the AOPA curriculum to continue into the student’s junior and senior years, said GTCHS community development coordinator Cynthia Fryer.
“It will help us literally update all of our technology in our school as well as the infrastructure to handle this technology,” Fryer said. “It will bring in the technical support to complete our program. We had the first two years in existence, but we could not go through the third or fourth year because it required such heavy technology. It will help us increase the number of engineers [and] aircraft operators, whether it is them getting a pilot’s license or for an unmanned aircraft [drones].”
GTCHS is the first South Carolina school to offer the AOPA program, which was established in the 2017-2018 school year. The school is set to have three students graduate from this program and currently has 23 students entering it this fall.
