Bed-Stuy School Is Ready For Take Off With New Aviation Program

BED-STUY, BROOKLYN — At P.S. 5, flight has always been a part of its legacy.

The school is named after the late astronaut Ronald McNair, the second Black astronaut in space, who tragically died in the Space Shuttle Challenger explosion.

This week, the school announced the unveiling of a new aviation center in partnership with American Airlines with the goal of creating a school-to-sky pipeline.

It all started when P.S. 5 Principal Lena Gates' son, Jamie, a recruiter and cadet pilot for American Airlines, came to the school and saw the 10 flight simulators purchased years ago with city Council funds, something that he would have loved access to as a child.

"He was always interested in becoming a pilot," Gates said, "but there was no pathway to get him there."

Back at American Airlines, Gates' son mentioned his mother's school during a conversation about industry-wide pilot shortages.

"He told them about the school in Bedford-Stuyvesant that had an aviation program, and that it would be wonderful to develop a partnership with the school," Gates said.

And now, American Airlines pilots and staff members from LaGuardia Airport and the airline's headquarters in Texas are volunteering with P.S. 5 to provide mentorship and share their experiences working in aviation.

The goal of the program is to provide students with a runway to careers in aviation, Gates said, with the hope to expand access to the aviation center beyond the walls of P.S. 5.

"American Airlines is offering us this pathway so that our students, even community students, will be able to go into American Airlines and become employable," she said.

Many of the volunteers with American Airlines are already members of the community, Gates said, emphasizing how important it is for kids early on to see local representation in the industry.

Christina Flores, managing director of aviation recruiting and programs at American Airlines, agreed with that point at Wednesday's ribbon cutting, where excited students were awarded flight badges, jackets, boarding passes and flight journals to track their progress.

"Today as we focus on the power of flight, what better way than to have these young children see the representation at the flight deck of who they can be, and of the future," Flores said at the event.

"Our entire school population was involved in the project," Gates said, connecting the event to language and literacy lessons, "it generated so much excitement with kids and parents."

The airline has also invested money in scholarships for graduating high school students to help diversify the skies, a representative told Patch, alongside a $1.5 million contribution to the Organization of Black Aerospace Professionals.

While most aviation curriculum is geared towards high school students, Gates said there is a need to expose children early on and create awareness around all sorts of careers there are across aviation.

That's why, she said, now a plane sits on school grounds.

"One of one of our partners donated it," Gates said, "it's really a big plane that you can actually fly."

"We opened the Aviation Center, not only to assist children in terms of becoming pilots, but also reaching out to them in terms of exposing them to the other aviation careers," Gates said, "so for example, being a mechanic is one of them."