All five Caroline County elementary schools have earned national recognition and are among only 160 schools nationwide to receive the CS100 School Award for their commitment to providing exceptional computer science education to K-5 students.
Denton, Federalsburg, Greensboro, Preston and Ridgely Elementary Schools were all listed among schools from across the country. The teachers in charge of this initiative are the media specialists at each elementary school: Linda Blackmon (PES), Ken Bouchet (DES), Christine Fortner (RES), Ann Mengal (GES), and Brittainy Simmons (FES).
CSisElementary and CSforAll announced the inaugural group of 160 schools receiving the award which recognizes elementary schools committing to teaching at least ten hours per year of computer science (CS) to every K-5 student. The Awards were announced March 30 at CSK5, The National Summit for K-5 Computer Science Education. Award-winning schools submitted 90-second videos describing their programs, five of which were featured at the CSK5 Summit.
“It turns out that computer science is a literacy, and like other literacies, it must be acquired in the elementary grades,” said John Pearce, Executive Director of CSisElementary. “We owe every child a solid understanding of coding, robotics, artificial intelligence, data science and computational thinking to prepare them for the digital future.”
CCPS Supervisor of Instruction Katey Allis-Fisher said, “The media specialists at all five of our elementary schools, in collaboration with our district Teacher Specialist Lindsay Grow have worked tirelessly to incorporate the computer science standards into an already packed media curriculum. Their commitment and efforts to our children's education in both media and computer science, do not go unnoticed and are greatly appreciated.”