Future of Boeing starts in high school

Published 9:33 pm Friday, May 21, 2010

DES MOINES — Five hours. Six buses. Ten miles on a bike.

That’s all in a daily roundtrip commute for Devon Gumke.

But Gumke isn’t traveling to work.

The 16-year-old lives in the Bothell area but attends Aviation High School in Des Moines. But the future pilot doesn’t begrudge the lengthy commute, nor does he miss his old school system.

“At least here I have some common ground with friends. At my old school, kids would just slack off,” Gumke said.

The “slacking off” likely can be attributed to a lack of challenge or interest — that’s not a problem for students at Aviation High School.

“I’d never seen a B before I came here, but now I rarely see an A,” Gumke said.

The curriculum is challenging, said Reba Gilman, principal for the high school. But it gets results.

Nationally, the United States is cultivating too few college graduates in science, technology, engineering and mathematics to keep up with job-related demand. Washington state lags behind even the national average. The problem, education and industry officials believe, can be traced back to high school and earlier education.

Only about 38 percent of Washington state’s high school students recently proclaimed an interest in majoring in those science and technology subjects. Roughly 73 percent of Aviation High School’s students will major in the topics.

The secret to Aviation High’s success?

Take a common interest — aviation — and follow it through all fields of study: math, history, English and foreign language. Offer intriguing courses: Private Pilot Ground School; Robotics Engineering; 3-D Computer-Aided Design.

“The aviation theme is not just about being a pilot or engineer,” Gilman said. Aviation High does its best both to make courses hands-on and to partner with industry. Students build aircraft engine blades that are examined by Boeing Co. engineers. The company also produced a 3-D model of student Griffin Nicoll’s computer-assisted design. Nicoll, 19, also was recognized by Rolls-Royce for his talent.

“I think the airline industry and Boeing know they need to get kids interested in the industry,” Gilman said.

Gumke has known that he wants to be a pilot since age 4.

“The only thing I could remember from a trip to Disneyland was the flight,” he said.

He’s been chasing his dream ever since. When Gumke heard about Aviation High School while in junior high, he applied to the program two years ahead of schedule.

The school only accepts about 100 students per grade level. Gilman strongly encourages students to remain enrolled at the school for all four years.

“We’re not interested in having you come for a year to ‘check us out,’” Gilman said.

She encourages prospective students to visit, to spend a day with an Aviation High student before applying. Would-be students should know there are no sports teams of any kind at the school.

“Don’t come here and tell me you want to start a football team,” Gilman said. “It’s not happening.”

The school focuses its resources on aviation.

As freshmen, Aviation High School students do job shadowing. The next year, each is paired with a mentor in their chosen field; Gumke’s mentor is a FedEx pilot who is helping the student figure out whether he wants to be commercial, military or corporate pilot. In their junior year, students do an internship.

Not all students at Aviation High want to be pilots like Gumke. Many are interested in robotics.

Sam Swan, a senior who will attend University of Portland this fall, has been on the FIRST robotics team at Aviation High. Swan envisions himself working in the defense industry someday.

“I like that push toward the future,” Swan said.

Ryan Sanders, 17, will pursue a degree in civil engineering at the University of California at Berkeley this fall. Sanders, like about 25 percent of the students at Aviation High School, has a parent who works at Boeing.

Sanders is also one of the 60 percent of students attending Aviation High who live in the Highline School District. The other 40 percent, like Gumke, are students who commute from places such as Gig Harbor, Bellevue and Olympia to attend the school.

“We’ve had seven families move here from out of state” in order for their children to attend, Gilman said.

Only a few other high schools in the country offer the curriculum that Aviation High does.

“We have a lot of schools that are looking at our model and want to replicate it,” Gilman said.

It’s a model that has won the respect of Jim Albaugh, president of Boeing Commercial Airplanes. After visiting the school recently, Albaugh said he believes the Aviation High School model could spread across the country.

“I walked away from that high school having confidence in the future of engineers,” he said.