Bart and all,
The way things are laid out at the moment there is nothing at all specific to sUAS in the FAR's. The FAA permits the logging of hours operating a UAV but none of those hours can be used to qualify for any aircraft or type rating or privilege. Kind of like getting all dressed up with nowhere to go. I've made it a point to call someone out on another forum that listed themselves as a UAV CFI, and directly questioned how the title was obtained since there is none such in the federal CFR's.
What is applicable, and solely because the FAA is requiring it in the Part 333 Waivers, is the Private Pilot ground school or training, because they are requiring waiver applicants that will actually be flying to have a Private Pilot's license. I compare that to mandating people obtain a ship's Master's license because they intend to float a rubber duck in their bath tub. From my perspective the only reason to force sUAS operators, specifically those operating multirotors in the customary environments, is as a direct benefit to AOPA. They've been complaining about the lack of new pilot starts for years along with their declining membership. The moment someone applies for a Third Class medical AOPA is notified and an application for AOPA membership is sent to the medical applicant. That is done by AOPA of course but if anyone wants to use their waiver they'll be submitting the medical form. Both AOPA and ALPA would just love for everyone to also have to be a commercial pilot because that's even more money spent at FBO's and keeping AOPA membership employed as flight and ground instructors. It also makes the aircraft lease back owners, A&P's, fuel sellers, aircraft parts manufacturers, and other businesses associated with full scale happy by increasing their revenue streams. ALPA might like it because they might finally get some people that are hungry enough to work for the salary levels paid by the regional carriers.
Once again, people and businesses that sell stuff and services to the multirotor operators are benefiting. The only people not benefiting are the actual M/R operators. Even if you have a waiver the process of submitting application for each and every shoot, with the delays associated, are preventing people from realizing the revenue they should be generating after being subjected to multiple levels of regulatory compliance.
One thing is certain, there seems to be nobody that is pushing hard for any modifications to the PP ground course syllabus that would expand the course by adding curriculum that would expand the knowledge level of full scale pilots relative to sUAS and/or add sUAS specific curriculum that would directly benefit the sUAS operator with information/regulation that would be vastly more applicable to the type of flight operations they would be participating in. To date everything is going precisely as I predicted in that the FAA is not changing their game to accommodate sUAS, but instead forcing sUAS to play a game they can't be competitive in. At this time I understand there is no plan to modify the part 333 waiver process, What we have is what we will continue to have. The focus is on integrating Tier II stuff and perhaps introducing a new class for what would be a Tier 1.5 class that currently fits Tier 1 by being under 55lbs. but having capabilities of long duration, high (<18k') to low (400-500') altitude, high speed (50 to 100 knots), BLOS flight operations. Three sUAS specifically meet those standards with the Aerosonde and Scan Eagle.
Without a standardized curriculum specific to sUAS/multirotors I can't find justification for anyone to attend independent "UAV" flight schools. If they are going for the FAA side of things and get the course at a cost equal or less than the cost associated with a local junior college or adult course, fine, but for the sUAS side, it's hard to justify. There are no published standards for any type of multirotor ground school courses and such needs to be present to establish relevance. The industry hasn't thus far even been able to come up with a reasonable set of safe operating standards, let alone incorporating them into a training syllabus.