President, Michael Dunlevie invited Eagle County School District’s Shannon Grant and her team to pay a visit on-site to see how the School District and Eagle Aviators may partner. Shannon is the Director of Post-Secondary Learning and Career Readiness for the District. On April 15, 2024, more than 20 children paid a visit along with members of the School District’s high schools and leadership team members from Youth Power 365, a Vail Valley Foundation partnership program.
The takeaway: Shannon agreed to work with other team members in collaboration with Eagle Aviators. On behalf of Philip Qualman, Superintendent for the District, Shannon wrote a letter to the Colorado Department of Transportation Division of Aeronautics in support of Eagle Aviators’ grant application to the State’s Aviation Education and Workforce Development Grant Program.
Ms. Grant wrote, “We also are working on offering semester- long internship opportunities for juniors and seniors to earn high school credit while
learning valuable skills onsite with Eagle Aviators.” More than a third of the district’s students qualify for free or reduced lunch and just under 32% of the district’s students are English language learners, more than double the state average according to Ms. Grant. This serves as a high priority of the State of Colorado and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). Eagle Aviators hopes to leverage up donations and state grant money to secure larger sources of funding including from the FAA.
