States do not count high school students enlisting in the military or entering U.S. military academies towards measurements of post-secondary success and effectiveness after graduation.
This leaves quite a number of very successful Parsons High School graduates, like 2015 graduate Jett Cooper, unrecognized in the data for their post-secondary accomplishments .
Cooper was always fascinated by the military growing up. He was that little boy at Halloween who wore the camo uniform and had camouflage wallpaper in his bedroom. Living near McConnell Air Force Base until he was 8, Cooper was fascinated with planes and that fascination intensified as he got older. It is funny looking back on his childhood, he said, because his aspirations were that he always wanted to be an astronaut.
“That was my childhood dream job growing up, and I think that is still potentially on the table with the way that I have progressed in my career so far,” he said. “As I got older, I became more interested in aviation.”
Defining himself as “a typical high school kid,” Cooper wasn’t the best student academically. Despite average grades, he somehow always found himself in honors classes, where he felt like the “dumbest kid in the class” with the lowest grades. Outside of classes, he was active in school. He played on sports teams: football his freshman year, tennis, and then swimming his senior year. He also participated in forensics and policy debate.
His junior year of high school, Cooper really began looking at his career options. By that point he had decided he wanted to be a pilot in the military, It all came down to how. He checked out the military academies, colleges and ROTC. What he quickly realized was he did not have the grades to be an attractive candidate for any of the military service academies.
“I felt that I was pretty intelligent, but the effort that I put into high school was not there as far as GPA. So I had to go back to square one there for a minute,” he said of researching his options. “What I found is that the Army has this really unique and somewhat obscure program. It’s simply called Warrant Officer Flight Training. It’s got a lot of nicknames. The two most prominent nicknames are Street to Seat and the other is called High School to Flight School, because the Army, and this program, is the only branch of the military that can take someone and make them a military aviator without a college degree.”
The reason it is called High School to Flight School is because the minimum requirements are you have to be 18 to be accepted and you need at least a high school degree. The program stemmed from the Vietnam War, when the Army needed replacements quickly to pilot aircraft. 
Cooper said that does not mean it is easy to get into the program today, as there are a limited number of spots the new recruits compete for and the process is intensive.
The more Cooper studied, the more he felt the program fit him, so he started building his application and a packet to present to recruiters in Pittsburg. He worked with recruiters for a year and a half, and by the time he graduated high school in 2015, he was able to submit his application. Fortunately, he was accepted.
Two teachers from PHS whom he feels contributed the most to his being accepted were his forensics/debate coach Edward Workman and tennis coach/teacher Jane Posch.
"Those two were the two teachers and coaches that I interacted with the most out of anybody. I spent many weekends with Mr. Workman at the big tournaments. He was my favorite teacher by far. I tried to maximize as many hours as I could in his class because I wanted to be around him. If I did not do policy debate for four years in high school I don’t think I would have made it into this program, because the skills that I learned in that class and doing debate tournaments made me comfortable with public speaking, improving my vocabulary, strategizing and thinking through situations on the fly. It’s hard for me to put into words how important that class and Mr. Workman is to me,” Cooper said. “Ms. Posch, I played tennis growing up and she is just the epitome of a coach that cares for her players and students. She worked us hard but treated us like family. I wanted to play hard for her. I didn’t want to let her down and didn’t want to let the tennis team down. Without her as well, growing me as a person, … she would not have given me the leadership experience I was able to rely on when I started my training.”
The fall after his graduation in 2015, Cooper went to basic training in South Carolina. After he graduated basic, he reported to Fort Rucker, now known as Fort Novosel, in Southern Alabama, where the Army has its flight school and officer candidate school. At the start of 2016, he went through Warrant Officer Candidate School (WOCS) followed by flight school courses. He graduated in 2017 as a Black Hawk helicopter pilot. Following his training, he moved to Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas where he was stationed from 2017 to March 2021. During that initial period, he was deployed to Kandahar, Afghanistan for 9 months where he engaged in combat operations.
Cooper said El Paso was his first time being in the desert and he ended up really enjoying it.
“There are lots of national parks nearby. The desert is fun. It’s great flying. It’s a big city that has about a million people, so anything you could think of to do is there. It just gets hot during the summer,” he said.
From there, everything was a whirlwind of activity. In March of 2021 he was accepted into the Army’s Pilot Instructor Course back at Fort Novosel. Following that 2 ½ months training, he moved to Fort Riley where he was stationed from July 2021 to April 2022. During that time, he was deployed to eastern Europe for about 6 months for an operation there. In April 2022, he moved to Tennessee joined a special operations unit for eight months after which he moved back to Fort Riley and submitted his paperwork to discharge from the military in March 2024.
He had a lot going on in his thoughts during those three years. At Fort Novosel he had originally determined that he was single, so he would do a full 20 years in the military and retire. That left him about 12 years to go. However, when he went to Fort Riley he met a girl.
“That complicates things… in a good way,” he said. “My life goals just kind of changed. I got up one day and realized how tired I actually was. I thought ‘Man, I don’t know if I really want to do this for another 12 years of my life.”
“I just realized I could commit another 12 years of my life to this lifestyle that will actually increase in terms of me being away from home and this girl, or I could get out and start civilian fixed wing flight training and become an airline pilot and make a lot more money and have a way better quality of life. It came down to a no-brainer,” he said. “I loved what I did. We did some really cool great things, everywhere that I have been stationed, but at some point, you just have to look out for yourself and there is nothing wrong with that.”
Presently, he is in New Jersey attending fixed wing flight training school- a $120,000 in schooling all paid for entirely by the GI Bill. He will finish in the middle of August.
“It’s awesome,” Cooper said.
When finished with school, he is moving to Hawaii with his girlfriend, who is also a military helicopter pilot, as that is where she is getting stationed. Her contract with the military ends in 2026 at which time she wants to pursue her master’s and become a teacher.
His goal once he finishes school is to pilot for United Airlines and fly the big wide body jets like the triple 7s and the 787’s to different countries.
“To me it’s just about exploring and traveling, and this gives me the opportunity to do that,” he said. “I’m extremely excited to continue in this chapter and work towards this next career after what the military gave me,” he said. “ There is a little sadness to it as well. What I miss are a lot of my co- workers, and I miss the people and I miss the helicopter. I certainly do not miss the Army. … I’m so excited about what the future holds for me.”
Cooper said he was thinking back to his childhood recently and remembers when Superintendent Lori Ray was principal at Garfield and for fifth grade graduation read the book, “Oh, the Places You’ll Go,” by Dr. Seuss.
“I was thinking about that recently and just kind of summarizing my experiences I have had over the past 8 or 9 years. You just kind of have to take a chance. You have to know what you want, or have an idea of what you want, and you have to take that chance and leave and go for it.
I will never hate on someone for wanting to stay in their small town, but oh my, the places you can go. There is so much out there for people in terms of anything. You just have to go and explore. Be adamant about taking a few years to travel, whether traveling the state, the country, or the world. There are so many people to meet, so many things to do, so many places to see. It will make you a better human being to leave your hometown for a while,” Cooper said. “I feel they would be doing a disservice to themselves to not take a chance and go and explore.”
NOTE: Kansas is leading the way in trying to change states’ ability to count military training as post-secondary success. The Kansas State Department of Education reported that six months ago that education officers from 28 states and two territories joined Kansas Education Commissioner Dr. Randy Watson in submitting a letter to the Department of Defense Nov. 13, 2023, requesting the DoD work with them to develop a model data sharing agreement allowing states to consider military service as a successful post-secondary outcome. The full letter can be viewed here:
