How to align FAA Part 107 curriculum to
Virginia CTE Course 8910

Most states make you reverse-engineer a drone elective out of generic aviation or transportation courses. Virginia doesn't. Virginia is one of the few states that has published a dedicated Unmanned Aircraft Systems CTE course — Course 8910 — with a built-in advanced follow-on, Course 8912. If you teach in Virginia, your standards-alignment paperwork is dramatically simpler than it is for a Texas or Florida teacher. This post is the crosswalk you can hand to your CTE administrator.

1. The Virginia CTE landscape for drone programs

Virginia CTE courses are catalogued by the Virginia Department of Education and the CTE Resource Center. Drone instruction lives in the Transportation, Distribution & Logistics career cluster, and Virginia has two stacked courses purpose-built for it:

• Course 8910 — Unmanned Aircraft Systems. 36 weeks · 1 credit · 140 hours. SCED Code 20905. This is the foundational course and the direct match for FAA Part 107 preparation.
• Course 8912 — Unmanned Aircraft Systems, Advanced. 36 weeks · 1 credit · 140 hours. Prerequisite: 8910. Running 8910 → 8912 gives a student a two-course CTE concentration — which matters for Perkins V accountability and for the student's diploma seals.

Because 8910 is already named "Unmanned Aircraft Systems" and already sits in the right cluster, you are not arguing that a drone elective belongs in CTE — Virginia already decided that. Your only job is to show that your chosen curriculum actually covers the 8910 competencies. That is a much easier conversation.

2. What Course 8910 expects students to be able to do

The 8910 competency framework centers on the knowledge a student needs to operate a small UAS safely and legally, and to pass the credential the course points at — the FAA Part 107 Remote Pilot Certificate. In broad strokes, 8910 expects students to:

• Explain UAS regulations and the certification process (FAA Part 107)
• Interpret airspace classifications and aeronautical charts
• Apply aviation weather data to flight decisions
• Describe UAS components, propulsion, and battery systems
• Perform pre-flight inspection and maintenance procedures
• Apply aeronautical decision-making and crew/risk management
• Demonstrate radio communication and airport operations awareness
• Address privacy, security, and ethical/legal considerations of UAS use

That competency list maps almost one-to-one onto the FAA Airman Certification Standards (FAA-S-ACS-10B). That is not a coincidence — Virginia wrote 8910 around the Part 107 credential on purpose.

3. DroneReady → Course 8910 crosswalk

Here is how the 14 DroneReady topic Assessment Packs map onto the 8910 competency areas. Paste this straight into your course alignment document.

Every row is testable on the FAA Part 107 Knowledge Test. DroneReady delivers 1,400 FAA-style multiple-choice items across these 14 topics with auto-graded Google Forms™, so a single 8910 course year comfortably covers the competency framework and drives toward the credential the course is built around.

4. The 8910 → 8912 concentration sequence

Virginia rewards concentrations — a coherent two-course sequence in one cluster — in both Perkins V accountability and the student's path to a CTE credential. The natural sequence is:

• Year 1 — Course 8910 (Unmanned Aircraft Systems). Use the DroneReady 6-Week Bootcamp as the Part 107 prep capstone of this course (see the pacing example below). Students sit the FAA Part 107 exam at or near the end of the year.
• Year 2 — Course 8912 (UAS, Advanced). Builds on the certificate: mission planning, payload/sensor operations, Part 107 waivers and the §107.200 waiver process, advanced airspace authorization (LAANC), and applied project work. DroneReady's Drone Systems & Components, Maintenance & Inspection, and Night Operations packs feed Year 2 depth, and the Part 107 recurrent-training content supports certificate currency.

A student finishing 8910 → 8912 leaves high school with a CTE concentration and a live FAA Remote Pilot Certificate. That is exactly the outcome Perkins V money exists to fund.

5. A 36-week Course 8910 pacing example

Course 8910 is a full 140-hour year, which gives you far more room than the 6-week sprint. A workable structure:

• Weeks 1–6 — UAS foundations. Drone systems, propulsion, battery chemistry, the regulatory landscape, why Part 107 exists. DroneReady Drone Systems & Components + Regulations packs.
• Weeks 7–18 — The Part 107 knowledge core. Run the DroneReady 6-Week Bootcamp at roughly half pace: Airspace + Sectional Chart Practice, Weather + METAR/TAF labs, Loading & Performance, Operations, Human Factors. This is the heart of 8910.
• Weeks 19–22 — Exam push. Mock FAA exams, targeted remediation on weak ACS areas, the interactive sectional-chart drills. Students schedule and take the Part 107 Knowledge Test.
• Weeks 23–32 — Applied operations. Mission planning, checklists, hands-on flight (where your program has airframes), pre-flight inspection routines, scenario-based ADM labs.
• Weeks 33–36 — Capstone project. A student-run mock commercial mission (mapping, inspection, or public-safety scenario) that exercises the full regulation → weather → airspace → operations chain. Bridges directly into Course 8912.

Run this and your 8910 students graduate the course with a federally recognized industry credential — the Part 107 Remote Pilot Certificate — plus a portfolio artifact. Perkins V funding officers love that pairing.

6. What about Remote ID and §99.7?

Two regulatory areas that post-date a lot of older course frameworks but show up on the 2026 Part 107 exam:

• Remote ID (14 CFR Part 89) — drone broadcast identification, mandatory since 9/16/2023. Covered in DroneReady's Security & Privacy and Drone Systems & Components packs.
• National Defense Airspace (14 CFR §99.7) — Special Security Instructions and criminal penalties under 49 USC §46307. Covered in Security & Privacy.

Both fit cleanly inside 8910's "privacy, security & ethics" and "regulations" competency areas, and teaching them prepares students for the actual current exam.

7. Defensive paperwork for your alignment doc

When you submit the course alignment, here's the elevator pitch:

"This UAS course is delivered using the DroneReady Curriculum (1,400 FAA-style assessment items + lesson slides + scenario decks) and aligns to Virginia CTE Course 8910 — Unmanned Aircraft Systems (SCED 20905, Transportation, Distribution & Logistics cluster). The course prepares students for the FAA Part 107 Remote Pilot Certificate, an FAA-issued industry-recognized credential, and articulates into Course 8912 (UAS, Advanced) to form a CTE concentration. The curriculum is Perkins V eligible."

Paste that into the standards-alignment section of your course proposal. It is accurate, specific, and uses the exact language Virginia CTE administrators expect.

What's next

Teach in another state? See the full standards crosswalk page for Texas TEKS §130.452, Common Core, and NGSS alignment — or read the Texas TEKS crosswalk post. For a free custom alignment PDF for any state framework, email hello@dronereadycurriculum.com.