Scaling Success Panel: Building a Sustainable K-12 Computer Science Program

okay I think everyone should be joining right now so welcome to our code HS webinar scaling success building sustainable K12 computer science program I see a lot of people now coming into the room so we'll just give everyone one minute to join thank you again for attending and taking some of your very valuable time with us we hope you can leave us some interesting ideas we know everyone as administrators is very busy so I'm the moderator so I'm Jeremy I'm the CEO of code HS and joined by Rhonda and Audra and Karen who is joining as we speak hopefully we're getting that Zoom issue figured out but we're going to still get started and we'll do introductions as well and they'll get to tell you more about about everything that they do what we'll cover we'll have a wide ranging discussion but we'll talk about scaling districtwide initiatives we'll talk about strengthening teacher engagement we'll talk about Lessons Learned and we have a lot of you in the webinar and so we'll definitely U make sure we can have some audience Q&A and if you look at your Zoom there's a Q&A section so if you answer questions in or ask questions in there that'll go into the chat and we'll try and answer some of those we have a bunch of questions we'll start with but near the end we'll try and make sure we can answer audience questions so I will unshare my screen and we'll Dive Right In so I think the place to start is just with introductions we have a lot of District administrator is joining us but we love to hear who we have on the call so just tell us about you know your background Your Role your District Rhonda you want to start us off sure I can do that hi everybody I'm Ronda Howard and I am in Dallas I work for Dallas Independent School District and I currently support teachers that are teaching computer science and information technology I've been in this department eight years and huge proponent of codhs Love Cod HS and that's who I am great Andre you want to give us a little introduction yeah thanks Jeremy hi everyone my name is Audrey mazan I'm the director of Career Education at Insight PA Cyber Charter so we are a virtual school in Pennsylvania full K through 12 in my role I help support all K through2 Career Education really hone in on the high school level for career and Technical education which also includes our it pathway and similar to Rhonda Cod HS has been a huge component in building that pathway and providing curriculum resources for our teachers and our students thanks for having me awesome awesome well we have a lot of good things to dive into so I think you know a really good place to start is understanding like what is your computer science program look like today you know what does it look like today and what did it look like when you started would love to hear a little bit about how that evolved rer do you want to tell us a little bit about that yeah sure so I'll start with our school's actually only seven years old so we are a newer school but from the start of the school we launched the pathway so the business pathway and the computer science pathway were initial parts of our high school program start out as all things you know good things T time so we did start small very exploratory kind of courses we have now grown into seven now with we have eight different courses that we offer so we explore everything from two different zip codes that we try to stay within so it's programming and data science as well as networking and security within those eight courses Cod HS provides six of the pieces of curriculum that we use and our resources as well and we have begun to launch into offering industry certifications that align very nicely to those programs too so it's been a wonderful Journey with it awesome and welcome Karen and Ronda do you want to tell us you know what is what does your computer science program look like now at Dallas you know what did it look like when you started working on it how has it evolved wow good question I know we probably don't have enough time to get that that could be its own be own webinar just that one question absolutely so initially when I stepped into this position we were offering maybe just three courses and it was a it was really a struggle securing a good solid curriculum that gave students a really good foundation this is I believe my our fourth year utilizing Cod HS and we there is not anything in code HS that we don't offer our my teachers do everything from web development to AP Computer Science to python to mobile app development it I mean we we cover it we cover the gamut of the codhs curriculum and codhs has just been a godsend for us because it's got a strong Foundation I mean I could go I just could go on and on and on about the value of cod HS and and how it has helped us Elevate our computer science program great to hear Karen would love to start just with quick intros we have a lot of District administrators Journey from all over just tell us you know your role your District any background and then would love to hear too like what's your computer science program look like today very good well thank you Jeremy and thank you code HS for inviting me to this panel I'm Karen Gilbert I serve as the district's Career and Technical education director in Buford South Carolina we're here in the Low Country we're fortunate that our state requires a graduation Credit in a computer science related course so as far as our demographics and we're actually even though Hilton Head is one of our schools we actually have some high pockets of poverty and sometimes digital access is important to different parts of our County so codhs has been exceptional and helping us to get out access for students that maybe would not have full blown coding and programming opportunities we use primarily grades 9 through 12 we are looking at eventually implementing in our Middle grades but we start with our ninth and tth graders with computer fundamentals of computing and our fundamentals of design web page and we have found that we have approximately 25 teachers that are currently using it and this is going our fifth year with code HS and then lastly I will say we also use it as a supplement for our project lead the way computer science courses again I know they have their own curriculum but our teachers have found it Cod HS modules to be very helpful again just to have those good handson simulations that our students can do within a a safe environment great great and I know as we were getting ready for this webinar one of the things we talked about was kind of how does the state infrastructure the State policies impact the development of your CS program so we love to hear how you've thought about that in South Carolina and then we love to hear from everyone how have the state policies kind of impacted or not impacted your thinking and planning so maybe Karen if you want to continue that'd be great sure and I know there's other states that there departments at the state level mandate when this came about around I think 1617 you know you had a lot of wailing and ashing of teeth because typically we have business computer certified teachers so they it it does take a while but I do like the fact that through legislation to be a a South Carolina graduate they think it's s it take they take it seriously to have some exposure to computer science Concepts they even so much as developed a framework that's really K12 so again we hope as we matriculate through to continue to push it further and further down to the Elementary grades as well but so the South Carolina they say you have to have one unit of credit at the high school level in order to graduate with your full credit so I think just having that support and push at the state level H has helped and then we can talk later as we get into some good strategies and tips as to how we implemented that got it Rhonda or Audra any thoughts there on just how what's going on at the state policy level just has or hasn't impacted your computer science efforts yeah I can hop in so in Pennsylvania we don't have it as a graduation requirement although I would fully support that because I think it is a very important content to learn one thing our state has done similar to Texas Karen is that the business teachers for sure and myself actually being a previous business teacher it was something that it was kind of getting I don't want to say pushed on but leaned on business teachers to really learn coding and to be the instructors for it so I know it kind of fell under that certification so while it's not graduation requirement what they did do is they did create a set of standards in 2018 so PA has our own computer science standards in addition to that they the state kind of created a alternate path for teachers to get certified to help increase instru in this area and I can't remember all all the requirements but basically certain teaching certifications we allowed all they to do with basically pass the state exam in order to start teaching so we have really grown in fact we have our we have three instructors at our school right now all three came in with their computer science certification because it's becoming more and more popular and and needed as well so definitely has really helped shape it what about you Ronda how have you that so okay good question so in the state of Texas students must their senior year they must obtain an industry-based certification and it it it keeps evolving so this year this year seniors must take and pass an industry-based certification and it must be aligned with two courses what we call a program of study so for example computer science we have everything from web development to programming and software development to cyber security so the seniors that are sitting for their exams this year and out of the code Cod HS code HS cyber security level one certification python level one certification and the web de the web design they're all on what we call our a through F list and what that is it's a score that's assign to a Campus based on well several factors but one of the factors is students taking in passing an IBC so this year's seniors in Dallas ISD across these three of themes I have 1100 students like I think it's 1137 that will be sitting for one of these three exams and you know so there's a lot that goes into it we have to audit the students to make sure that they have their their courses aligned with that IBC so that that campus gets that point so that's just a little bit about it got it yeah yeah what we've seen is like every state is so unique but the kind of policy framework kind of sets so much of what the district level CS might be so I think you know you know in terms of what will be helpful for everyone listening you know it's not easy to build and grow a computer science program and there's bumps and hurdles along the way you know what were some of the challenges as you scaled up your computer science program or what do you think challenges others on the webinar might be facing in similar situations they have a computer science program or it's starting or it's growing or so would love to hear you know what were some challenges as you scaled it up it could be on any Dimension and how did you think about addressing them and the District just as you have grown your program over time I don't know if anyone audre do you want jump in yeah I can start so the first challenge you know is definitely going to be recruiting you know your staff the teachers and really having someone with you having some with coding background is going to definitely help guide it the other big component and stakeholder wise I feel to bring in is really industry in the CT world we revolve everything around our occupational advisory committees that has been a huge guide for us in building the program and really understanding what is the demands in the workforce and also like job ready skills and then while designing that I will add on like the challenge that we had from my experience has been having like a highle course for instance we kind of tried to evolve it around like okay this is what we feel is going to be job ready for students but then it became challenging for students so it was really diving into the prerequisites and were they aligning to what we needed for the students to to kind of continue in that cohort and our pathway so it was really just a matter really bringing in like student interest having the right teachers in place and and hearing really what industry was asking for as well to really guide in that and I will say in year seven now we're at a place like this we we completely changed things going into this year and so we're we're excited to see how it kind of flows now it really starts to make sense to have it you know the scope and sequence for the courses and and as I know Ronda was talking about industry certifications we really started to align those as well and seeing the success with students with earning those certifications has really came from having the curriculum and code HS has been aligning well as that we've seen the success for it so right right yeah Ronda Karen any thoughts on just some of the CH I mean I know it's you know lots of different types of surprises each year but any particular challenges you know as you grow in the program that you think other administrators might be facing and any ways you tried to to tackle those or what's you know what's worked for you yeah well you know go ahead go ahead Karen okay I think it helps we're a onetoone district we weren't several years ago because obviously anything that's advancing technologies that students are going to be learning teachers are going to be teaching being able to have that access to web-based resources so as we were embarking on this our district was beginning to go to a onetoone device so that helps tremendously so that when they come into 90 minute block classes at the high school or or the Middle School they have a device that's been assigned to them so that they can not only work on information there in the school such as the code H modules but also be able to utilize that at home again just kind of addressing that digital divide that I'm proud of our County being mindful of so just as you're barking on this just you know what are your access what is that going to look like what resources are you going to use and then audre you were spot on with bringing in business and industry to say if we are are using these courses intended for computer science related Concepts then then how has this impact what they would actually be learning out in the field Ronda any thoughts on sure yeah challenges that you've encountered in scaling yeah our our big our biggest challenge has been connecting with industry partners and providing like workbase learning experiences so that students can connect with their learning in classroom what's with what's happening out in Industry we can we can gather some industry Partners to do some work-based learning things but like for example if you go to Verizon you're not going to see a whole lot of programming because you know it's proprietary and you know those are industry secrets and so just connecting with industry professionals and like in cyber security so that our students get a a more robust experience and a more holistic experience within computer science that's our biggest challenge so yeah also if you're on and you have questions feel free to submit them in the Q&A I see some coming in and we'll try and address some near the end and and all that and I some questions I see already will definitely cover so you know I'm hearing things about you know the staff the industry Partners all of that so maybe we can start with the staff part and the teacher Recruitment and the teacher professional development because that's something we see and hear a lot especially when districts are at earlier stages so what are the things that you've done you know within your District that has helped with teacher recruitment teacher professional development could just be in your District could be with Cod J but we love to hear how you thought about that topic so Rhonda do you have any thoughts on how you thought about the PD and teacher Staffing part sure so it it's I will admit especially for a district our size it is hard to find a computer science teacher so we are a district of innovation and what that means is we can hire an industry professional so you know there are a lot of people who retire like from AT&T or Verizon or work for any tech company and they want to come teach and so I'm allowed to hire them I just need to verify their experience and they they bring twofold they bring that computer science knowledge but they also bring that industry experience and so that's kind of how we have tackled the ability to staff our programs our our computer science programs got it so you're having some people come from industry too and absolutely you guys finding that also I know that came up in some of the answers you know how are you thinking about the the Staffing the PD just the work that you're doing on the teacher training side are you guys also doing you know from industry are you trying to train your own teachers we kind of see elements of both so anybody who's teaching a range of courses District level courses they are required to take the code just training in the summer I mean it's mandatory there's there's just no exception because this is the curriculum that we're using and so the team at codhs has been very helpful and I I I've never had a teacher walk away unfulfilled from our PD session and then sometimes we have to do a reset or maybe a refresh maybe midyear and so there's some there are some PD days where we do a refresher maybe a midyear reset and again pull in code HS but I also pull in some other partners to to do some additional training so that's how we handle professional yeah the PD is such a big part and I feel like the limiting factor is like where can you get the time for the teachers and for the district because the schedule's already full before the school year starts absolutely audre I know you commented about the teacher recruitment being part of your planning like what have you done there has it been more recruiting or training from the existing teachers who taught other subjects or everything what did you guys do So currently we have three instructors that all have their computer science certification so I'm very fortunate where we're at now but we didn't start here the magic number and bringing an industry as Ronda was talking about is you you could bring someone in that has 4,000 hours of experience that's kind of the magical number in CTE so we did have someone that brought came in and he had coding experience and he was such a huge asset for us because of his knowledge and industry it's it's amazing to see what they can bring to the table in a program like this so for the professional development like he came in with that knowledge but then our professional development had to come and him learn to teach so we actually support teachers and pay tuition for them to go back to school and which they have to have their certification and teaching then so but there's like a it's a pretty big window that we allow in Pennsylvania I think it's actually eight years for someone come from industry so we help provide that professional development any professional development internally and then as Rhonda mentioned cods has a wonderful program for their professional development that we have utilized as well I don't think I mentioned this in my introduction but we actually are a full k through2 codehs program we have a elementary and middle school now and last year when we brought on well she was already teaching actually stem at the level but we brought her into the curriculum and it was wonderful CU I was able to get her connected and get her the PD she needed to learn Cod HS so that's kind of been our journey with it awesome Karen how you thought about PD Staffing recruiting training has it been all easy or did you have some of those like other approaches that that they mentioned well I'll Echo what Rhonda and Audra has noted about code hs's onboarding process can't say enough they're very flexible our reps we typically when we start our school year semesters particular if we have new students they're very flexible to work with our teachers either during their planning periods or right before the school starts during a targeted training and it's it's it's very one two three and again the tech support is is Fabulous As far as summer training and ongoing training we're again fortunate here particularly in the low country country a citadel and another a couple of other universities provide what's called a 30 hour computer science endorsement and if they receive that 30 hours of training at an approved College of University then they are able to add that to their certificate to be eligible to teach some of these computer science courses we also utilize can't stress enough Tech colleges if you're fortunate enough to have technical colleges that have a focus on it networking cyber is is the the the big thing too here in South Carolina we often you utilize that in the summer for our teachers to train I really like what both states you have noted about bringing in Industry South Carolina's not quite there yet but there there is pending legislation for that very thing so I'm glad I'll be able to use Texas and Pennsylvania to U as some good examples awesome so I'm seeing a lot of questions coming in on the Q&A so maybe what we can do is try and answer some of those but maybe not everyone answers everyone just so we can answer a lot more of the attendees questions but this one's probably good for everyone looking forward for computer science in your District you know what's next how do you want to keep your computer science program going really great how do you hope to improve it what do you see the next you know year or two three look like for your CS program and again happy to have anyone jump into this one if I may our goal is to push this down to the Middle grades we haven't because of scheduling tends to be expl exploration in our Middle grades here so we want to again make sure that the infrastructure is in place for students to be able to cover all those standards if we move it down to that so they can receive a credit another area that we want to explore is those certifications that my the two colleagues have have noted again that's that's huge in South Carolina we're moving into a model called stackable credentials and so obviously if they can graduate in high school not only having successfully completed a computer science related course but add that CT and then lastly what what do these advancing Technologies look like and what training resources are out there like code HS you know AI arcial intelligence is a huge topic right now so we'll definitely be exploring that totally Rhonda or Audrey want to jump in on kind of what do you think what's next the next you know year couple of years for for your program definitely Ai and we've already kind of my teachers have have already started moving in that direction they're hungry for it and they want to do stuff with it the problem is we have to get kind of our district infrastructure to allow some things in so we're currently working with our district district it professionals to allow certain sites in but the students have embraced it the teachers have embraced it they see the connection from AI machine learning to computer science so that's our next step is to explore AI I know I know probably everyone's thinking about that and that's one of our upcoming topics do you have any thoughts on that one Audra separately from AI but just what do you think the next couple years looks like for your CS program open it I will say we did actually start a data science and then AI course in the pathway to kind of stay up with the innovation of it but the one thing that we're piling this year that is brand new and we're hoping will help Rhonda had mentioned about that industry experience and and the challenge of getting the students to have that work-based learning experience we decided to Pilot it with our own it department so we actually just created it's we started out kind of think of it as like student supporting like a help desk ticket system we're Crea like a tier one and a tier two so we're piloting tier two this year so our highlevel students that are we have three right now that are seniors that have been through now our courses are actually going to start an internship program right in our it department and our it team is going the full route interviewing you know looking at resume with a student looking at the industry certification that they've earned and then we're actually working out how they are going to get this time and and we're hoping to even make it down the road of like a paid Co-op position for our seniors to take so that's our next big step in this is like let's get them now that hands-on experience totally totally wow we have so much to cover we could talk for a long time and I'm I'm trying to hit questions we have the questions from the audience so I see this in a few questions from the audience and and and definitely a topic we wanted to hit so would love to hear like what grade bands do you oversee are you high school are you K12 or so how do you see computer science fitting in K to2 and feel free to speak on that whether you're doing K to2 or whether you're just focusing on a specific grade band I see a lot of people are wondering about what does it look like in K8 what does it look like in elementary and how did you how did you do that I'm seeing that in maybe three or four questions from the audience so if anyone wants to speak to the gr bands you overse and how does that fit into your K12 CS strategy or is it very separate I can start so we as I mentioned we do have full K through 12 now that we're utilizing code HS so I actually only oversee the 9th through 12th grade in regards to the CT pathway of computer science and it although I do support the elementary teacher as well as the middle school teacher so I will say Elementary wise she covers it's more of stem as how we kind of call it but it's just getting the students exposed and using the program one thing that research and data is showing that once students get to that middle school age what happens is the stigma of this is only for males starts to kick in so the data is really starting to show that in order to have like females U minorities get involved is you really want to start the exposure early so they can you know build that interest and that Curiosity and skill set around it so it's more of an exp Ure at the elementary right now Middle School however we actually have our instructor every student sixth through e8th grade is getting exposed to it and they have it's an elective course and they rotate quarterly almost like how they go through like you know PE or an art class we have that course there as well Rhonda did you want to jump in on how you thought about things fitting in K to 12 and you know you oversee sure so I I'm number one my person person Al belief is that we need to start students with computer science as early as possible third grade second grade I I'm just you know they're they're an open book at that at that age I support now with that said I support high school but I do have some Middle School teachers that I do support because they're teaching a middle school CS course for High School Credit Now we do have another department they call themselves computer science and they do work with exposing your your more Elementary students so you know so I mean I I we have that here but I would say you know it start elementary students with things like scratch they they just need to get an understanding of what an algorithm is and scratch can do that because if you change you know this one block and make it do something else then understand oh this is what an algorithm does so I believe in starting them early early early early as early as possible scratch is free and then you know they can they can move on to when they get to middle school hopefully by then they're they're hungry from for more computer science activities and then you can move into products like code HS so those are my thoughts yeah Ken how do you think about K12 strategy are you focused just in one area or how does your District think about that alignment yeah I I'll Echo what they've said so as a Career and Technical Ed it's grades 6 through 12 for primary support services and again we utilize the awareness in the Elementary grades the state's framework is a a K12 framework that they have identified certain things that our teachers need to be addressing such as H problem solving algorithms I think we use exploration in the Middle grades through some courses that are beginning to teach coding and programming I would recommend highly robotics we are a huge I know there's different companies out there but we are huge Vex robotics District so that's been very helpful to teach all those fun things but within a a Hands-On way and then I would say we've had success like for hour of code our high school students actually through the good Innovative teachers would go the week of hour of code down to the Elementary grades and again using your product code HS and a few others just to show them a few little examples of how they can do that and it's just a great interaction as to how the high school student is teaching the elementary students but I am over six through 12 in the usage of our state approved courses at our computer science and our teachers that we serve but definitely we continue with K12 Focus totally totally yeah I mean what I'm hearing from everyone is you know this belief that hey you got to start early you got to build interest early you don't want people self- selecting out by middle school because they're like ah coding's not cool that's not for me and I think the challenge is not should we do it but how do you do it because it's a lot easier said than done to go great we should have K12 Cs and then you look at the districts the 10,000 plus 13,000 plus districts across the country and very few you can point to that have this you know really robust K12 Cs and so you might have oh someone's over this but someone's not over middle school but how do these things all fit together and so I think for a lot of people on the call well with with kod Jess we started with high school we added Middle School a few years ago we add Elementary our high school side's the most popular but you know recently been doing more with the elementary too and built like a embeddable scratch so kind of what Rhonda said like scratch is great great free place to start and then how do you solve that problem of making it work in your district and all that so yeah no I'm seeing lots of good questions across the board obviously everyone wants to do it but then you have so you have so much time so let's try and hit more topics Cs and AI I have some questions the audience has some questions people want to know what what we're thinking about so totally can you know jump in make it interactive what what's your District stance on AI are you guys allowed to use it are you having courses is it projects are we Allin are we kind of stepping back are we thinking are we what what's your AI approach and how does that intersect to what you're doing with cs so I think a lot of people are wondering that and so any again again feel free to jump in and we can make it any interactive as anyone wants I I'll glad to share we're we're fortunate to have a very proactive it department and while it's nothing's cart blanch for obviously for the safety of the students they just developed this year an AI policy U so at least there's going to be some guidance on that and there is a District approved tool or resource that now all teachers it's it's not chat GPT but it's a similar that's in a safe environment that teachers can access some something to that effect but I think just having that starting point of an actual districtwide policy is going to help tremendously as this morphs and then as far as on the teaching curriculum side the state of South Carolina has developed a four course AI pathway it's in beta right now it'll be piloted next year and we hope I'm gonna get let someone else work out the the so you guys so they're building AI courses but you guys aren't teaching them yet we plan after next year I want to let someone else work it out and then then we'll add it so can I if I'm your District if I'm a student or a teacher can I use chat PT or is that banned it's banned okay I'm just curious what about the are you guys Banning chat GT but they have a they have a thing called Magic yeah yeah so I know there's a lot of different like adtech companies that are doing you know that AI stuff are you guys Rhonda or Audra is JT usable or banned it's it's banned for students it's not banned for teachers but it is banned for students and one of my teachers as ear well as recent as two weeks ago I was in his classroom doing an observation and he was trying to teach students how to write an AI prompt for it was like text text a video and yeah we were so what I've done is I've started sending it a list of sites that that I approve of that I personally approve of that's and one of them is deep ai.org right and just you know to do those those little tasks yeah still figuring it out Audrey what's been the initial reactions on AI with you all has it been you know diving in a little bit of hesitation picking and choosing some tools yeah very very very similar what Karen was saying we very much embrace it I you know we feel like it's it's here to stay it's part of innovation it's part of the workforce you know either going to hop on or get behind so we do embrace it I said we did launch an AI course we have a data science course it's actually the prerequisite for AI in our district we partner very closely with our it Department in this aspect too create a policy around it we decided you know it was it really important for the students to understand the like social and ethical implications that go around AI so we really H in on the digital citizenship of that for our students we do not allow chat gbt there is one I'm not totally familiar with it but co-pilot is one I've seen come through that I guess our it department has approved and the magic school as well more for staff but for our students yes like we're we're here to to embrace it and right do what we can with it so it sounded like you know some people are having AI courses and we we've built some but it's interesting to see because it's still very early when you guys think AI courses are you saying we want to teach them to use AI are you saying we want to teach them to build with AI are you saying this AI course is really a computer science course and you needed to know python AI courses really broad like what does that mean for you what are you hoping to have all of the above all of the above I think all of the above is kind of where it goes where it's like hey you know you can have some course and maybe it's not as Technical and not as coding and we teach you how to use these AI I tools or hey you've learned some coding you've learned some python you can build with it you can do some more advanced things machine learning but I'm not seeing from our perspective we're not seeing a lot of AI courses that are being taught yet but we're seeing that people are talking about it do you guys see that differently or sounds like Karen you said maybe that's a couple years out Ronda or Audra what kind of what are your you know is AI courses something that you're thinking about or right now is it more just about about AI tooling and what the student and teacher facing policy is going to be so I said with that when I retire I am going to go work for a curriculum company and I'm going to write an AI course that's what my plans are but until then there is one AI company I think it's ai. edu I I I ran into it at isty and I shared it with my teachers I had Mi I had mixed yeah kind of a mixed sense about it there's really not a lot of AI curriculum out there yeah so I mean you know it's it's wide open and so the first question you asked it's it's all of the above from creating I mean there's even jobs that are called AI prompt writers you know and yeah I saw somewhere maybe it was a 60 Minute special that they were teaching AI like this is a keyboard and then they were giving them all the the different versions of what a keyboard could look like so I'm not necessarily writing code but I'm teaching AI what this is yeah yeah yeah no it's so it really is interesting what the like what districts will want to see with AI courses so we've tried some of that we have we have a few AI courses in codhs catalog some which are like less coding but exploratory survey or discussions some that are more the computer science but I think you know a lot of times there's just not space to add the things that you want to add and so we're seeing teachers they want to pull in a lesson they want to pull in a project but I I agree it's an evolving time and I don't think everyone knows what the AI plus the educ space is gonna look like but I don't know Audrey did you want to say anything else on AI I can also go to the next next topic I think they covered it and we we have the course it's like very much just the basic AI like algorithms students can work with you know I mentioned considering social ethical implications are a big part of it too for us right now that's interesting but algorithms then still makes it a higher level course and assumes you maybe have some sort of Cs or intro before as opposed to you know you could be in middle school and they're they're using these AI tools and and how do you run that let's see I'm trying to hit a lot of things from the audience and some things that we have let's see what what's something that code HS could do that would help your district and be impactful for your students and school and how you guys are thinking about where it should go anything you are hoping to see from code HS if you could wave a magic wand and go why don't we have this tomorrow an AI course okay well we have one we have one but I guess we have to make it better so that's good figuring out the right figuring out the right thing in AI course is is such a good point because it's can to take some experimentation some of our courses have been around for five or 10 years and they've gone through so many iterations and you know this is any any school districts first there's we look at the course catalog there's so few states that have an AI course in their state catalog so few yeah rer wave a magic wand and say hey here's one thing do could help with as you guys develop CS what might you do yeah I would say Jeremy it's not necessarily on the onus of of a vendor provider to to provide teaching tips and and strategies that should be on the training they receive in computer science but I I would say if there was something that would help a teacher we as we go into classrooms and our roles that it's not just about the kids on the the modules yes they're learning the content you have a Cod HS has an excellent U LMS platform but how can a fairly new teacher or new teacher to CS balance students on the computer with the content piece of it but also marrying that to the Hands-On applications you you guys do have which I we really like the teachers tell me of the built-in simulations which helped tremendously but just the tips and tricks of it's not just about sitting a student working through the module checking them 100% 100% getting the best practices out there is not so easy and I think it's an effort every year I don't know audre if there was one thing that code HS could improve to make your school district or CS program better I guess from where I stand and I'm not the teacher you know in it every day is you know we do those industry certifications as I mentioned so we go outside different providers so you guys could like say hey Microsoft let's partner and take the exam right here and be the pro that would be amazing great great let's see what else people wanted to cover there were a couple questions that I saw in a few places some people are asking about Pathways and some people are asking about interdisciplinary we see that coming up all the time is is Pathways a focus you know is it just getting one course are you trying to get a pathway is your pathway a district thing you know something how have you done Pathways as a focus or interdisciplinary as a focus yeah so I I'm excited about that it's a great question Jeremy all of our states more than likely are centered around the old model of 16 career clusters is a national model and I'm excited that they're finally updating that states are at different levels of of of what that's going to look like but it's really going to be modernized so that advancing Technologies or digital Technologies is going to permeate within all of the pathways if you're if you're a state it we do College and Career Readiness for our accountability model so pathways are very important they take a series of courses if they pass it they get an industry certification and then that can count toward our accountability measures so I'm excited that with the advancement of Technologies and the reorganization of how those pathways are structured for example if I want to take digital Technologies or entrepreneurship in a welding class and a count toward my pathway will be able to do that on down the future because I may want to own my own welding business on down the road and all by the way be able to use some Ai and so on to make sure it's successful so pathways are definitely a huge building block as part of our infrastructure Ronda rudra have you thought a lot about the pathways is that kind of the structure that Things fall into in your District or is it not really set up that way ours oh go ahead go ahead auder Sor we did that's okay we definitely create the pathways and the scope and sequence you know to align to occupation or what it might look like I love what Karen was just saying because I didn't know they were relooking at those within all the Clusters because I do think it kind of like locks you in and make students feel like oh I'm in the business pathway I can only you know focus on you know entrepreneurship right now but the inner section of it if that can really just be something that we help figure out for the students is going to be so beneficial that cross-curricular piece for sure R did you want to sure if that's been part of your thinking or not really it it is as Karen said you know we in Texas we do have the the 16 programs of study and then under that it breaks down so for example under it we have it support and services networking web development cyber security and programming and software development now to add to that next year senior so the 20256 26 seniors they will have to complete four courses within that program of study to be considered a completer along with that they have to have that IBC taken and passed so pathways are are huge in Texas students can't get around it I mean they can you know like some say I don't really know that I want to do that I just want to do this and and that's okay too you know some students don't know but for the most part most of our students are required to be completers yeah got it got it I'd say in the last few years more and more districts are are getting to a spot where they're getting more robust CS Pathways at least from our perspective I think when you talk to a district and again for anyone listening like because districts are in such different spots like you know sometimes districts don't have Cs and it's just hey how can we get our first course how can we get our first teacher and you maybe are in the launch phase and then okay you're building that out you have a few years you need to you need to have a series of courses that's when they're developing the pathways and you're saying hey we're building towards in some cases it's CTE or certifications and for some districts it's AP based or you know even some districts they they have a language and they say we want to build a series of courses that go with python or data science and all that so the program is mature we see people wanting to have a defined set of Pathways the other thing is in our catalog we have like you know couple hundred courses and you don't know which ones to take and so to say hey like we're in the state can we take the courses that are within our state or hey we're focus on the certification we want to have a cyber security pathway and so I just think that is where a lot of the yeah that goes let's see I know let's see if I can hit the other questions from the audience thank you everyone for your questions we're getting so many good questions I see people are asking about how you know how to actually teach CS so yeah I think that's on the PD side and I know in codhs in our and some of our PD libraries we we you know there's I think there's different levels of it with the with the like how much the district wants to do but there's sometimes like just virtual and async then there's things that are maybe synchronous live virtual in person but yeah I think to the question from from the audience like getting actual modeled lessons from other teachers is a great way for people to see and kind of avoid the Trap that Karen mentioned of you don't want to CS class to be hey let's go to the computers like you really have so many ways to make it more interactive we just have a few more minutes so let's see what our last couple questions might be do you happen to know how many students or what percentage of students are taking CS in your District I know in some of the latest numbers that code.org reports it's only 5% of students taking computer science and so although there's been so much progress most students still aren't getting access to a class do you happen to know you know what percentage of students you're reaching in your school or how are you thinking about the student you know recruiting efforts there and I think this might be one of our last questions because we're almost out of time so for for our district it's 100% as far as the high school because again it's a graduation credit so they do have to take at least one by the time they graduate so like right now we got about 3,000 students we six high schools and a career center so it's it's I would say it's 100% where the where the true rubber meets the road is when they matriculate on do they continue taking other CS related courses because it is something they want to move into as a career and that's something we'll continue to work on well I'm looking at my dashboard and I would say 5% is probably about correct for us [Music] yeah I'd have to check that that data point Jeremy for us same thing it's a choice for students in n9th or 12th grade the last time I looked at our enrollment numbers I right now all our course I think I have around a 100 students that are taking the courses but as I mentioned all middle school students do rotate through so they're getting exposure and then at the elementary level it's more of a choice too but there is some exposure so I'd say a third of our population maybe 30% yeah yeah it's so you pulled some of the data by state it's so variable by state what presentent students are getting access to CS what percentage of students are taking CS obviously some of the states are saying hey you have to take it's now becoming a graduation requirement or some of the state standards are developing and so but I think a lot of people often who are involved might get surprised that it's only maybe one in 20 students is taking a CS class when if you're on the call or on the webinar you probably think hey everyone should be taking this and so that's where I think the access in the middle school or the elementary school when you can expose a lot more students if the high school is optional it's a great way to do it so okay we're almost out of time if anyone has any closing thoughts anything else you want to share to the audience we can probably wrap up there I know the questions keep popping in if anyone wants to leave any closing remarks then we'll wrap up yeah I guess I mean for me I just you know thank cods for having us here and for all the support they've given our school for the past seven years really really appreciate that it's definitely it helps guide some of our sequence too kind of seeing what we can offer and I would just say you know I think it is a very important set of courses and just just the creative thinking and the computational thinking behind it it can help any student no matter you know what their career goals are going to be if anybody here that's joining you know I'm happy to share my email as well and share you know any resources or advice I can provide too thanks Adra yeah I Echo that as well absolutely ditto audre said it best awesome well thank you everyone for attending thank you Ronda Audrey and Karen for joining and sharing your expertise and Lessons Learned and kind of navigating all the quirks of building a program and all the challenges and I know for people joining the call you know we appreciate your time and good luck building your CS program we'd love to help at at code HS and hopefully you can walk away with a couple good ideas from this session so have a great day and thank you again to our panelists see you all right thank you by everybody bye bye