As the technology capital of the world, the San Francisco Bay Area has long imported (mostly white male) talent. This initiative leverages a cross-sector partnership among a school district, local state university, and municipal government focused the important goal of broadening access to CS careers among local first generation students of color and those living in poverty.

After watching the video, I have some questions:

• How long has SF-CALL been operating?
• Has the district incorporated CS coursework as a graduation requirement? If not, what role does SF-CALL have in that step?
• How does SFSU prepare its mentors (and I'm assuming future teachers) with regards to culturally responsive CS curriculum and pedagogy?
• What are some indicators that will let you know whether SF-CALL has been successful in two years?

Thanks!

Very encouraging to see a program that recognizes that getting more at-risk or underrepresented children in computer science careers means starting early and often! I know in Chicago they’ve just implemented a mandatory CS curriculum for high school students, but I do not know what they are doing in elementary or middle school to lay the groundwork. What do you have in mind at the very youngest ages and do you anticipate that girls/women might have unique obstacles to overcome in what has become a more traditionally male STEM subject? Also, are you planning on tracking the progress of students that you touch all along the pathway, not only in terms of those who end up pursuing a CS major/career but those who picked up valuable skills in computational thinking etc but may be benefiting in less visible ways? Also great to see industry involved!

Great project that looks promising! Good to see so much partnership across the education/life spectrum from early middle school to young adult education-- I wonder what the teacher training component will look like given that most STEM teachers are not necessarily proficient themselves in a CS background. What is the strategy that SF CALL will use to make that happen-- also echoing Rosann's comment about how will it be culturally responsive? That's a huge question to tackle given that the tech gap in our schools is premised on much more than just some schools having money to fund it and others do not-- there's a real divide in terms of those who have knowledge and access to CS and CS careers and to students who do not know what CS is and do not have family/friends/neighbors who come from that world.

This is such an incredible initiative. What advice do you have for getting something like this started at other school districts? What are the first steps? Is it best to begin with the school board, the superintendents, the principals, teachers, parents? 

 Thanks for the comments - I am very proud of our SF CALL Team in this video. We could not have even begun this without the visionary folks in the San Francisco Unified School District and our very engaged SF Chamber of Commerce.  

This was a great video showing multiple perspectives and it seems a great project as well. I have some questions about the network. Can you describe how SFUSD, SFSU and the chamber of commerce are interacting? What I mean by this is if SFSU is implementing its own innovations for its faculty and students or if they are actively helping to transform SFUSD and if so how? And what is the role that the chamber of commerce plays for both SFSU and SFUSD? Did they make the connection to Google? Are there other examples of how they are involved? I am trying to learn what each group gives to the network, and what they get? Or if they are working on similar innovations each within their own sphere? Thanks!

HI SFUSD and SFSU team -- great video. Super motivating discussion of the challenge & problem; we gotta do this! How is having INCLUDES money enabling you to "think different" about what we can do? Is the collective impact or NIC approach bringing something new into your thinking? Keep up the great work... jeremy

This project is an inspiring example of a partnership between a school district and a local university. I was interested in how you're planning on integrating industry support. You mention that Google will select students who are interested in CS degrees.  Do you have any plans to transfer lessons learned about working with students from underrepresented groups to industry and help inform their recruiting, retention, and advancement processes?

So happy to hear about this new collaborative initiative! At this point in your partnership, what would you say have been your biggest challenges around establishing work priorities and timelines across your organizations, and simply working together toward a share goal? Looking forward to following this work here in San Francisco. 

Great to see more about the work across the bay !  How are you working with the new CS supplemental credential work?  Will you offer PD to teachers to allow them to obtain that credential?  We are working to integrate CS across the board with our Career Pathways initiative that targets alternative education students - How are you incorporating the continuation and alternative school settings in this project?

Eric - nice to see a more fully developed presentation of your work. As I shared during the PI meeting in DC, our work with both the NSF Includes and our Partner4CS project (http://sites.udel.edu/partner4cs/) shares a lot of similarities. Our team would love to engage in future conversations and ways in which we can potentially collaborate as we focus on engaging young students (in both formal and informal settings) with CS opportunities.

Thank you for sharing your work! Like others have said, it's great to see the focus on underrepresented groups and curriculum that can engage all students with culturally responsive pedagogy. I hope to hear more about your work and this project!