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Esky gets female diversity award

Deborah Prescott | Daily Press Escanaba High School students prepare for a computer class recently. Escanaba High School received the College Board AP Computer Science Female Diversity Award for achieving high female representation of 50% or higher. Out of 20,000 schools across the nation, Escanaba was one of the 639 recognized in the category of AP Computer Science Principles.

ESCANABA — Escanaba High School was recently awarded the Advanced Placement Computer Science Female Diversity Award by College Board.

“I was actually surprised when I got the notice on it, because it wasn’t anything we applied for,” said Escanaba High School Principal Darci Griebel. “… When we received that distinction it was out of the blue and really nice.”

Escanaba earned the award by achieving 50% or higher female representation in the AP Computer Science Principles class, taught by one of Escanaba’s math teachers, Brent Sauve.

818 schools were recognized out of 20,000 nationally for having 50% or more females in AP classes during the 2018-2019 school year. Escanaba was one of 639 schools recognized in the AP Computer Science Principles category.

Escanaba’s curriculum includes six AP classes students can choose from — Chemistry, English, Biology, Statistics, Calculus, and Computer Science. AP English will split into AP Language and AP Literature for the 2020-2021 school year.

“Students can take it (AP classes) for Dual Enrollment, or take it as an AP course which is transferrable to colleges and universities, but the AP course is on a 5.0 grade point average instead of the traditional 4.0. So it gives them a little GPA boost,” said Griebel.

Students take an AP test at the end of the course, and if the score is high enough the student will get a college credit. Escanaba’s AP Computer Science Principles class provides students a look at what a college course would look like and how much work goes into it, said Sauve. His class starts with a lot of basics, how computers communicate, and concludes with students learning how to program.

“This would be like the first class you would take in college if you were looking to go into computer science as a career,” said Sauve. “The first year we had the class it was mostly guys, this year it’s pretty close to that 50/50 split.”

College Board is a non-profit organization that works to help students achieve college success and oversees AP classes, pre-SAT and SAT testing.

“When our students take SAT and PSAT in the spring, it’s all run through College Board,” Griebel said.

Eighth, ninth, or 10th grade students can take the PSAT and review the results before taking the SAT. After learning the results a student can link their test scores through the College Board with Khan Academy.

“The Khan Academy is kind of like a tutorial service, and when they link they can work on individual modules or pieces that are directly related to the areas they are weak in,” said Griebel.

Escanaba was asked to pilot AP Computer Science Principles a few years ago when it first started.

“It worked out ideally because Brent Sauve, our math teacher, is certified in computer science and so it was a great step to send him to the training and get started,” said Griebel. “… so we jumped on board with that pilot program and we’ve had it for several years.”

Sauve said the class is a natural fit for him.

“It’s a good program,” he said. “Computers aren’t going to go anywhere … kids should have a knowledge of what makes them work. There’s no prerequisite for the class. We start right from scratch and go.”

Griebel said a lot of the jobs students are preparing for now don’t exist yet, but jobs that are going to be needed for the future are lining up with computer science trends.

“I think we stand on our own merits here pretty well, with what we can do for a kid in the four years they are in high school,” said Sauve.

Griebel said Escanaba is more than an educational facility.

“We would do the kids a disservice if we didn’t get them into a field that’s marketable,” said Griebel. “We want to get them into something they’ll enjoy, … that’s one of the things I love about Escanaba, we try to have a little bit of everything, help students find where their interests lie, and what they want to head into.”

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