Beyond the Flier: Four Actionable Ways to Grow your CS Program

As students begin to sign up for their courses for the 2020-2021 school year, Computer Science teachers everywhere have an awesome opportunity to work towards growing their CS program. Research tells us that the earlier students take a Computer Science course, the more likely they are to pursue CS after high school. This statistic is even more amplified for girls and underrepresented groups, which means that every CS teacher has the ability to support the movement towards increased diversity in CS Education.

Go to the students. Connect with the math department chair in your school, and share that you’re working to offer more students the opportunity to take CS. Ask ito reach out to math teachers to coordinate class visits and share a short recruitment video. While you could go to the teachers directly, having the support of the DC leads to more buy-in. Keep your presentation under five minutes, and highlight the different courses you offer. Focus on why students might want to take certain courses – Freshmen, for example, would benefit from starting with FOCS and then moving on to AP CSP and finally CS A, while a rising Senior who knows they want to major in a STEM field might prefer CS A for its more widely accepted CS credit. Record a video version of your presentation for classes you aren’t able to visit using a Screen Recording software, and follow-up with teachers you’ve shared it with to answer any questions.

Work with counselors. Counselors are responsible for a lot: the emotional wellbeing of students, helping to ensure that all students take the required coursework to graduate on time, and – of course – writing hundreds of college recommendations each year. Taking time to discuss different CS course offerings and answering questions can support counselors in driving potential students to your program. Ask to speak at a counseling department meeting, and come prepared with a one pager (like this one I’ve modified from Justin Serota of Anne Arundel County Public Schools). Explain each course in depth, help them differentiate between prerequisites and potential pathways, clear up misconceptions about what type of student might benefit from a CS course, and offer to speak with students one-on-one if they have additional questions.

Reach out to teachers to generate a names list. Work with teachers in your school to identify students who might benefit from taking a Computer Science course. The more passive way to do this is to send out an email with a Google Form attached that teachers can use to recommend students. Incentivize teacher participation by offering to bring coffee for the department with the most recommendations. For the best results, visit each department meeting, and ask teachers to list out student names on an index card or piece of paper. When you have your list of students, send an email sharing that they were recommended by their teacher (include the teacher name for a bigger impact!), share your video presentation, and offer to meet with them one-on-one.

Visit your feeder school. This recruitment action requires administration support in the form of a sub day, but can be incredibly helpful in building a program, as incoming students are signing up for classes, too. Reach out to science teachers at the middle school level or fifth grade teachers at the elementary level, and ask if you can spend a day talking with students about your class. Share that you’ll facilitate a brief computational thinking activity (this is in the Science standards!) and talk briefly about the courses they can take the next year. Keep your presentation under 15 minutes, and you can visit multiple classes each period. An easy activity to run is Program the Teacher – you can run the activity in under 10 minutes, and need no materials. Kids love it! Be sure to follow up with a thank you email after you visit.