Graduation Requirement
Should all Washington's K-12 students learn CS before graduating?
In the 2024 legislative session, a CS graduation competency requirement was proposed, but was unsuccessful, partly because it did not engage the perspectives of teachers and school leaders.Â
In Summer 2024, CS for All Washington organized a process to elevate teacher and school voices prior to the 2025 legislative session, organizing a 6-hour in-person workshop on September 16th, 2024 in Yakima, WA with a representative group of 21 teachers, administrators, and teacher educators from all regions of the state. The workshop discussed a primer on CS, the current K-12 CS policy landscape, and four policy alternatives. The workshop was funded by the NSF-funded Exploring Computing Education Pathways alliance. After the workshop, we gathered feedback from 50+ stakeholders across the state, including other teachers, school leaders, higher education faculty, community organizations, and not-for profits, incorporating their feedback into the recommendation.
The result of this process was a 2-page memo, summarizing the majority and minority views and offering a policy recommendation for future legislation: