ACE Awards Go to Top School, Teachers, Student, Partnership

National ACE School of the Year

Students at the 2023 National ACE School of the Year – Goldsboro Elementary Magnet School in Sanford, Florida – proudly holds their school space flag.

Goldsboro Elementary School in Sanford, Florida, and its flight and space STEM teacher, Robert Wakelyn, head the list of national honors announced for 2023 by Civil Air Patrol’s Aerospace Connections in Education program.

Goldsboro Elementary has been named National ACE School of the Year and Wakelyn as National ACE Teacher of the Year. Wakelyn taught the ACE program to almost 900 students in grades K-5 this academic year

Other top awards include:

National ACE Student of the Year – Parker Van Sloten, a sixth-grader at Fellowship Baptist Academy in Carson, Michigan.
National Sustained Excellence ACE Award – Amy Kranich, a second-grade teacher at Kenwood Elementary in Fort Walton Beach, Florida, and ACE teacher for 14 years.
National ACE Plus Collaborative Team Award – the Dan River Composite Squadron and the Rockingham County Middle School in Reidsville, North Carolina. The award showcases how CAP’s squadron outreach program supports fifth- through eighth-grade grade classrooms with STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) instruction and introduction to Civil Air Patrol’s cadet program.

All award recipients will receive a plaque and a grant from the Air & Space Forces Association.

Marking another record year of participation in 2022-2023 with almost 98,000 students involved, ACE is CAP’s campaign to introduce a sequential, grade specific program to young learners to instill an early interest in varied STEM subjects and careers. Using the three program components of academic, character education, and physical fitness, ACE is a natural progression option into the cadet program for many middle school students.

Registration for the 2023-2024 ACE program will open Aug. 1.