“Alina is a recent immigrant from Belarus and has picked up outstanding English since her arrival less than 3 years ago. She joined our Aviation Technology program for the 20-21 school year and has been doing a phenomenal job. In fact, even as a relatively new English Language Learner, Alina managed to score in the top 6% of our students on her first semester aviation grade. This is primarily because she is consistently the most prepared and hardworking student in our class of 66 young men and women who were all competitively selected for our program from 29 high schools across the region. Alina has already earned her pilot ground school certificate and is preparing for her FAA knowledge test (and I anticipate that she will complete this in several weeks on a scholarship). Her hard work this year will also pay off in at least 20 college credits toward a bachelor’s degree in Aviation Science should she choose to pursue it. Alina is passionate about becoming an airline pilot and has begun the process to apply to our local flight school and is also applying with the Alien Student Flight Program run by the TSA so that she can begin formal flight training. Finally, Alina was selected to join our Aviation Leadership Summer Program and will be instructing younger students on STEM related Aviation topics for three weeks starting in June. Alina would be an outstanding representative for the program!”