Building Systemic Capacity to Scale and Sustain Equity in Computer Science through Multi-Stakeholder Professional Development

The CSforALL movement has made great strides preparing teachers in computer science (CS) with professional development (PD) toward broadening participation in computing. These opportunities develop teachers' understanding of CS content, alongside culturally-relevant practices and equitable access. However, while a focus on teachers is necessary, it is not sufficient for systemic, scalable, and equitable implementation. Comprehensive PD programs need to include teachers, school counselors, and administrators. This paper uncovers a statewide research-practice partnership's approach to a replicable multi-stakeholder PD model that addresses the following research question: How can a comprehensive CSforALL model effectively engage teachers, counselors, and administrators to work in unison to ensure equity sits at the heart of scaling and sustaining CS education for all students? A university-district research-practice partnership developed a week-long professional learning experience for teachers, counselors, and administrators that linked equity at the classroom, school/district, and policy levels. With the intentions of iteratively improving on the PD and learning about attendees” CS education interests and experiences, the RPP collected and analyzed observations, interviews, and surveys. Findings reveal (1) a multi-stakeholder comprehensive PD model has positive impacts for the capacity-building of CS education leaders; and (2) a focus on equity across all strands of the PD program develops a better understanding of why equity needs to be at the center of CS implementation, allowing different stakeholders to work together to recognize collaboration is needed to respond to the challenges faced at each level of implementation.