Northrop Grumman Invests in Computer Science Education for Students with Disabilities
In 2018, in partnership with ACCESSCSforALL, we launched the CSforALL Accessibility Pledge to address the gap in computer science education resources and programs serving the estimated 7.6M K-12 students with disabilities. More than 100 organizations have joined the pledge to make #CSforALL truly for all including bringing their current resources and offerings up accessibility standards and ensuring that future effort be ‘born accessible’ . You can too.
Today we are excited to announce an investment from Northrop Grumman Foundation to start up the CSforALL Accessibility Pledge Project with the goal of making accessibility for students with disabilities a foundational and expected part of K-12 computer science education, both in and out of school.
Over the course of this two-year project, CSforALL, ACCESSCSforALL and the Accessibility Pledge Advisory Committee members will support the cohort of pledge-makers in implementing accessibility plans with resources and referrals, office hours, informational webinars, and consulting.
“We saw significant growth in the number of accessibility-focused CSforALL Commitments, as well as organizations seeking help incorporating accessibility into their programs since we launched the pledge,” shared CSforALL chief evangelist, Ruthe Farmer. “These early funds will enable us to provide ongoing support to the community in truly making CSforALL inclusive of all youth.”
“As a company with a culture that welcomes people of all abilities, we understand the importance of accessibility and are committed to supporting the connections between inclusion and student success in STEM fields”, said Sandra Evers-Manly, president, the Northrop Grumman Foundation and vice president of global corporate responsibility, Northrop Grumman.
We are grateful to the Northrop Grumman Foundation for their leadership and vision in seed-funding this important project and are looking forward to sharing progress and outcomes of the project at the 2019 and 2020 CSforALL Summits.
The inaugural Accessibility Pledge Project Cohort meeting will take place May 13 at 4PM ET. To participate, ensure that your organization has joined the pledge and is a member of CSforALL.
Many CSforALL members have already stepped up to the accessibility challenge. Here are just a few examples:
ACCCESSCSforALL recently released their fully accessible AP CS Principles course. The course is built on the Code.org course and leverages the Quorum programming language for the blind.
Bootstrap committed to making their entire software suite fully-accessible to students who rely on access technology and to further develop their editing environment to be both accessible and usable as a pedagogical tool for visually-impaired students in the 2018–2019 academic year. (Check out this interview with EdWeek on their project.)
CodeSpark Academy is developing new instructional resources for coding and special education implementation aimed at increasing access to CS education for K-8 students with disabilities.
TechKidsUnlimited is providing game design, website, and app development workshops for NYC students with neuro-developmental disabilities.
