NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — McCann Technical School is considering adding a drone program to the school's offerings.

 

School Committee member Robert Reilly presented his findings from the Massachusetts Associations of School Committees and of Schools Superintendents joint conference, held in Boston a week ago. He told the committee he was impressed by a drone program at a Fall River high school.

 

"It really grabbed me," Reilly said Thursday. "It is not just learning how to fly drones but what they did with them …They did an awful lot of good things."

 

Reilly said students did aerial mapping of forests and agricultural land. He said the instructor of the program explained how drone pilots can be a huge asset to farmers.

 

"For crop dusting, they showed an example of fertilizing fields and they put a drone up there and it was up high enough to help the farmers see what they were doing," he said. "They missed big gaps when they were laying down whatever they were doing."

 

He said the Federal Aviation Administration course is only eight hours, so the school would not have to hire anyone — just find an interested teacher.

 

"I think that first, we have to see if it grabs a teacher that would be a plus," he said. "I think it would be a really good thing to investigate at a small scale."

 

Reilly said there are costs that would come with such a program but added his professional organization has offered to kick in $3,000 to jumpstart the program and purchase drones.

 

Superintendent James Brosnan said he thought it was a good idea and that he would investigate it.

 

"It is an interesting thing and we would support doing that because as when started robotics we got the right teacher, then the right students and the right niche," he said. "Form it as a club and get organized."

 

Reilly said he also served as a delegate representing McCann at the conference to vote on resolutions but felt a subcommittee should be formed to review these resolutions before the conference. 

 

"We don’t ever discuss what our positions are on whatever these resolutions are like arming teachers — those sorts of things," he said. "It seemed to me we should do that at least have some sort of committee that has a discussion on these and makes some sort of recommendation so when we go to these conferences and go into the delegate assembly, we have our voice heard."

 

Brosnan suggested that instead of creating a new subcommittee, roll the responsibility into the policy subcommittee that can look at the list of resolutions and recommend to support, not support, or stay silent to the entire committee.

 

The committee voted to make this change.