INDIANAPOLIS — Adding computer science courses to every school in Indiana will be a challenge, Indiana Schools Superintendent Jennifer McCormick said Monday.
The Indiana General Assembly, acting on an agenda item by Gov. Eric Holcomb, approved legislation this session that requires all public schools to offer a computer science course as a one-semester elective beginning July 1, 2021. Grants are to be awarded for professional development of teachers.
“We think it’s extremely important that schools get behind computer science. Many of them are already doing that but we still have room to grow,” McCormick said.
“Our biggest charge is, how do we attack that for K-5 and K-8?” McCormick added.
The Indiana Department of Education supported the bill, but new computer science courses need to be evaluated against content time in classrooms, she said.
On Monday, Holcomb cited the computer science bill as one of nine of his agenda items that successfully went through the Legislature.
McCormick said she was pleased with legislation creating a single diploma for high school graduates instead of the current four diplomas.
As she spoke Monday morning, McCormick was awaiting word of a special legislative session to address school safety issues. Holcomb approved
the session later Monday in part to seek legislation providing $10 million over the next biennium for safety grants, notably for school safety specialists.
A bill approving that expenditure failed to pass by the deadline last Wednesday.
“We were hopeful to get some of that money to help offset some of the costs that our schools are telling us that they need for school safety, some of the resources they needed. Obviously that didn’t go,” McCormick said.
Also, schools adjusting to the recent Graduation Pathways legislation and the federal Every Student Succeeds Act may find two accountability systems for student achievement to deal with. The issue is to be discussed by the state board this week.
Under ESSA, accountability applies to every student in every school; students must be enrolled for at least 162 days. Although McCormick said she supported ESSA’s focus on sub-groups such as homeless students, some Indiana students might not fit federal accountability categories.
“I’m worried about that population of our most atrisk,” she said. The state board may discuss rules that overlap between the programs, McCormick said.