S.F. schools expanding to meet computer science needs
Schools globally, including those in Santa Fe, have just celebrated Computer Science Education Week around the theme “Computer Science is Everywhere.” Indeed, computer science is influencing our lives on a daily basis, beyond just the use of a cellphone or computer.
All sectors of our economy, right here in New Mexico, require employees who have coding experience or understand cybersecurity, big data or algorithmic bias stemming from artificial intelligence.
By making sure all Santa Fe Public Schools students get this foundational literacy, we are broadening their future options.
Our state averages more than 2,900 open computing jobs each month, with an average salary of $71,000. Many of those jobs are in the Santa Fe area, including at Meow Wolf, Los Alamos
National Laboratory, our hospitals, state and city government and many small tech businesses — as well as the myriad of work-fromhome tech options.
Santa Fe Public Schools recognizes these local needs and is meeting this challenge through the strategic use of funding from the Education Technology Note, or ETN. The ETN uses local tax dollars to fund the district’s technology initiatives. Money from this effort stays in the community to support students’ access to high-quality digital education and resources.
The district’s digital learning program also uses grant funding from the state Public Education Department to increase students’ access to standards-based computer science and innovation programs and support teacher professional learning.
The school district is distinguished in New Mexico for its innovative and forward-thinking digital learning practices. The Computer Science Ready 2025 initiative to expand computer science education in schools started as a Board of Education resolution in 2018. Through a phased-in onboarding process, the initiative now includes 23 of the district’s 27 schools.
As schools create three-year plans for the initiative, the focus is on the specific needs of their students and school culture. The district acts as a support, rather than a driver, in plan development. The goal is to deepen teachers’ instructional practices in computer science in order to affect the district’s culturally and linguistically diverse classrooms.
In addition, Santa Fe Public Schools is a leader in providing access to computer science for every student, ensuring equity and inclusion for all.
An ecosystem of great local organizations supports this work, including Northern New Mexico College, Santa Fe Community College, STEM Santa Fe, Explora, New Mexico MESA, the Supercomputing Challenge, Computing in Research, the LANL Foundation and the city of Santa Fe.
More and more, students enjoy computer science because there are so many ways to express themselves as they learn entrepreneurial skills and apply their computational thinking to solve complex problems.
About 5 percent of high school students in the district are taking a computer science class, which is slightly higher than the national average of 4.7 percent. Our next focus is on K-8 students. Through these efforts, SFPS could see increased enrollment and be competitive with states and large districts that have developed computer science graduation requirements.
Along with the Computer Science Alliance, we will keep growing computer science education in our district. The community can help, too, by creating opportunities for students to apply their computer science skills through creative community projects, internships, mentoring and future job opportunities.
Computer science is something we can all embrace.
Paige Prescott is the executive director of the Computer Science Alliance, with more than 15 years working in computer science education. Justine Chavez-Crespin is Santa Fe Public Schools’ digital learning innovation coordinator and has been in education for 10 years.