How to fund a high-school drone program with
Perkins V money

The single most common reason a high-school drone program never gets off the ground is budget. The single most common reason it does is a CTE coordinator who realized the program qualifies for federal Perkins V funds. If you are trying to stand up an FAA Part 107 elective and you have not yet talked to your district's Perkins coordinator, this post is for you.

None of this is legal or grant-compliance advice — your state CTE office is the authority. But this is the practical lay of the land, written for the teacher who has to make the case.

1. What Perkins V actually is

Perkins V is the Strengthening Career and Technical Education for the 21st Century Act (Public Law 115-224), the 2018 reauthorization of the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act. It is the largest dedicated federal funding stream for secondary and postsecondary CTE — well over a billion dollars a year, distributed to states and then sub-granted to local districts (called "eligible recipients").

The money flows like this: Congress → U.S. Department of Education → state CTE agency → local district → CTE program. Your job as a teacher is almost never to write the federal grant. Your job is to get your drone program written into the district's local Perkins plan so it can draw on the funds the district already receives.

2. Why an FAA Part 107 drone program qualifies

Perkins V is built around a few core ideas, and a Part 107 program hits nearly all of them:

• Industry-recognized credentials. Perkins V explicitly prioritizes programs that lead to recognized postsecondary credentials. The FAA Part 107 Remote Pilot Certificate is a federally issued, industry-recognized credential — not a participation certificate, an actual FAA airman certificate. This is the single strongest argument you have.
• High-skill, high-wage, in-demand occupations. Commercial drone operations span public safety, agriculture, surveying/geospatial, infrastructure inspection, and media — documented growth sectors. Perkins funds programs aligned to in-demand occupations in your state's labor market data.
• Defined career cluster + pathway. Drone programs sit in the Transportation, Distribution & Logistics cluster (and frequently cross-list under STEM). Perkins funds coherent programs of study, not one-off classes.
• Work-based learning & dual credit. Part 107 articulates into community-college drone and geospatial certificates, supporting the dual-credit pathways Perkins rewards.
• Special populations & equity. A low-cost-to-student credential that opens a real wage pathway is a strong fit for Perkins' special-populations and equitable-access priorities.

3. The CLNA is the document that matters

Perkins V requires every local recipient to complete a Comprehensive Local Needs Assessment (CLNA) — a biennial analysis of program performance, labor-market alignment, and equity gaps. The CLNA is the gate. If your drone program is not reflected in the CLNA's needs and priorities, it is very hard to spend Perkins money on it. If it is, funding becomes a budgeting conversation rather than a fight.

So the highest-leverage thing you can do is get drone/UAS language into the next CLNA cycle. Here is paste-ready language built for that:

"The DroneReady Curriculum supports preparation for the FAA Part 107 Remote Pilot Certificate, an FAA-issued industry-recognized credential. The program crosswalks to our state's CTE Transportation, Distribution & Logistics — Aerospace pathway and provides direct workforce readiness for commercial drone operations across the public safety, agriculture, geospatial, and infrastructure-inspection sectors. The credential carries no per-student licensing fee and is attainable by students aged 16+, supporting equitable access for special populations."

Hand that to whoever owns your district's CLNA — usually a CTE director or a federal-programs coordinator — and ask for it to be included under the appropriate cluster's needs and program-improvement priorities.

4. What Perkins will typically pay for

Allowable uses vary by state plan, but a drone program commonly funds these categories with Perkins dollars:

Curriculum is almost always the cleanest, fastest Perkins purchase — it is unambiguously instructional, it is non-recurring per-student, and it directly maps to a recognized credential. A district curriculum license is an easy line item to defend in a Perkins budget.

5. What Perkins generally will NOT pay for

Knowing the limits keeps your proposal credible:

• Supplanting. Perkins must supplement, not replace, funds the district would otherwise spend. You cannot use Perkins to cover something already in the general-fund budget.
• Programs with no credential or pathway. A standalone "drone club" with no aligned program of study is a hard sell. Tie it to a course and a credential.
• Recreational / hobby framing. If the program is pitched as recreational flying rather than workforce preparation, it falls outside Perkins' purpose. Frame it as Part 107 commercial certification prep. (See our companion post on Part 107 vs. TRUST for why this framing matters.)
• Capital construction. Building a hangar or major facility work is generally not Perkins-eligible.

6. The 6-step playbook

1. 1. Find your Perkins coordinator. Every district receiving Perkins has one — often the CTE director. This is your most important contact.
2. 2. Map the program to a credential + cluster. FAA Part 107 → Transportation, Distribution & Logistics (and/or STEM). Use the standards crosswalk.
3. 3. Get language into the CLNA. Use the paste-ready paragraph in section 3 above.
4. 4. Build the budget around curriculum first. Curriculum is the easiest, lowest-risk Perkins line item — start there, add equipment next cycle.
5. 5. Document the labor-market case. Pull your state's in-demand occupation list; commercial UAS roles are frequently on it.
6. 6. Track credential attainment. Part 107 pass rates are a clean Perkins performance metric. Reporting them strengthens every future cycle.

7. Why curriculum-first is the smart Perkins move

Districts often make the mistake of leading their drone Perkins budget with a fleet of expensive airframes. Hardware depreciates, breaks, and produces no measurable Perkins outcome on its own. Credential attainment is the Perkins metric — and credential attainment comes from instruction, not from drones sitting in a cabinet.

A standards-aligned curriculum that demonstrably moves Part 107 pass rates is the highest-ROI, lowest-risk thing you can put in a Perkins budget. DroneReady's district license is built for exactly this line item: one defensible purchase, mapped to a recognized credential, with the alignment paperwork already done for you.

What's next

See the full standards + Perkins V crosswalk page for the cluster mapping and additional CLNA language, or the district licensing page for quote-ready pricing your Perkins coordinator can drop into a budget. Questions on alignment for a specific state? Email hello@dronereadycurriculum.com.