OSU-Cascades professor talks about new grant to boost HS students’ participation in computer science courses

Ridgeview HS has 'Girls Who Code' lunch-break program; teacher, students weigh in

REDMOND, Ore. (KTVZ) -- The Oregon Department of Education has awarded a grant to an OSU-Cascades professor. It's part of a statewide plan  to expand and offer computer science classes to all students K-12 by 2028.

"Thirty years ago, I was young -- I was starting out in my career looking around and being one woman in a sea of men," Jill Hubbard, an associate professor of practice in computer science, said Wednesday.  "I'm hoping 30 years from now, that will completely change."

She has been assigned a recent award of $628,000 from the Oregon Department of Education to be distributed to programs in the state. 

"There'll be an administrator workshop and a counselor workshop, and they'll be in an elementary computing computational thinking, an elementary school workshop," she said. So we're really trying to create some systemic change."

The goal is to expand computer science education for Oregon's K-12 students -- regardless of ethnicity, gender or socio-economic status. 

Ridgeview High School in Redmond, which will benefit from the grant money, has a "Girls Who Code" program.

Ridgeview computer science teacher Josh Davis said of computer science that at first, "I thought it was people sitting in cubicles and coding -- and that's not really it. It's really about how to solve problems, ultimately."

There are 16 students in the program, with students learning during lunch breaks. 

Ridgeview sophomore Jayln Tolliver said, "I joined because I love technology, and I would love to go into the technical field, building or coding."

Sophomore Caitlyn Pigg said, "It's helping me open up to robotics, which is very confusing to me and intimidating."

In the coming months the more than $500,000 awarded to OSU-Cascades will benefit other programs aimed at increasing education in computer  science.

Hubbard said, "In the past, there's been a lot of fragmented activity around computer science, but not necessarily structured around equity-focused, sustainable, scalable things. So that's what our focus is on."

In addition to OSU-Cascades, the plan was also developed alongside the University of Oregon and Portland State University.