Sofia Gover used to think coding was for people who were older, smarter or more “techy” than her.
But with trial and error, she says learning to code opened a door she didn’t even know was there for her.
“Through coding I learned patience. Not the easy kind but the real kind … I learned that mistakes are not the end,” she said.
Gover is an eighth-grader at Zamora Middle School in South San Antonio Independent School District. These were lines from a reflection essay she wrote after being part of Vision Coders for a year.
Vision Coders is a program created by the Intercultural Development Research Association (IDRA) that introduces coding classes to underserved middle schools across school districts in the southern region of San Antonio.
IDRA, a local nonprofit that promotes equal education opportunities in public schools, launched Vision Coders to meet the need for “quality” science, technology, engineering and math education on the South Side.
On Thursday, tech savvy kids from Edgewood ISD, Harlandale ISD and South San Antonio ISD gathered at Palo Alto College to showcase a year’s worth of work.
As part of the program, Vision Coders take video game coding classes as an elective during the school day and create digital portfolios for an end-of-year showcase where they get to meet coders from other schools and flaunt their skills.
During the showcase, students huddled over screens in a college computer lab, playing each other’s games, talking about their process and typing furiously on keyboards.
“STEM programming can be very expensive,” said Stephanie Garcia, a STEM education specialist at IDRA. “But it is a critical need, we know that in the future these tech careers are going to be in high demand.”
Based on their own landscape analysis of the region a few years ago, IDRA found that only 1% of Latinos “were engaged” with tech careers in that part of town.
That’s why IDRA went out for a five-year federal Education, Innovation and Research grant, which is specifically for the creation of programs that prove they can improve achievement for high-needs students.
Zamora, Brentwood, Kingsborough and Dwight middle schools — present during the May 21 video game showcase — all have student populations that are over 80% economically disadvantaged, according to state data.
Amounting to roughly $4 million over the five years, the EIR grant is set to expire this year, and IDRA will have to find funding elsewhere to keep Vision Coders going.
Garcia said most districts have told her they can’t afford to keep the program on their own, since most are in the process of cutting budgets to keep up with rising costs and flat public school funding from the state.
IDRA hopes local STEM employers see the program’s value and decide to invest.
Vision Coders reaches Hot Wells Middle School in San Antonio ISD, and the program serves 100 students overall. As part of the program, teachers are trained and mentored throughout the year, and students in the course often show growth in math achievement, which is how IDRA measures the program’s success.
Whether IDRA finds more funding or not, the program would likely disappear at Brentwood Middle School. Because the school has gotten consecutive failing ratings from the state, Edgewood ISD is handing control of Brentwood to an outside group called Third Future Schools starting this summer.
Oscar T. Galdeano has been a teacher at Edgewood ISD for over 30 years, and he teaches the coding class at Brentwood Middle School.
He’ll be moving on to a different campus next school year and recently found out he’ll be getting a pay bump under the Teacher Incentive Allotment, which increases teacher pay based on effectiveness and campus demographics.
If IDRA finds financial support, Vision Coders could move to a different Edgewood campus too.
‘Meaningful’ video games
One game screen reads in big green letters: “My friend Gunner said Kendrick Lamar is the best singer.” A small unicorn then prompts the player with a question:
“What is my friend’s name?”
It’s a reading comprehension game meant for young elementary students. The game’s creator, Marianna Alvarado, is an eighth grader at Zamora Middle School.
Vision Coders is all about teaching kids to code in a “meaningful way,” said Garcia.
Students learn how to build video games using platforms like Scratch and Code.org. They start by working with a few basic templates, but work their way up to writing java script.
Games are designed to support early learning in reading comprehension, basic math skills, writing and even bilingual education. As part of the program, Vision Coders are paired with elementary school “buddies” to mentor, and the younger students play the games.
Students in the program don’t choose or elect Vision Coders on their own. IDRA works with school counselors to specifically target students at-risk of dropping out, using state indicators like attendance rates, disciplinary histories and academics.
“We want to position [students] as school leaders and give them this opportunity to increase school belonging,” Garcia said. It also tees students up to start thinking about college and careers at an earlier age.
“It’s important to talk about that, starting now in middle school,” Garcia explained. “We can’t wait till high school — it’d be too late a lot of times.”
A place for creativity, growth
Xzavier Ibarra is an eighth grader at Kingsborough Middle School in Harlandale ISD, and his favorite part of Vision Coders is “seeing how my buddy reacts to my games.”
Ibarra said he’s often struggled with stuttering, but coding boosted his confidence since he’s expected to present his projects with other students.
“I was actually really proud of myself,” Ibarra said, remembering how he felt after creating his first game. Titled “About Me,” the game prompts players to type in responses to questions like “What’s your favorite color?”
Ibarra thinks he’ll probably be an electrician, like his dad, but he wants to keep coding and he’s starting to think about college.
Ariana Ramirez hand-drew the animations featured in several of her video games. She also attends Kingsborough, and plans to enroll at STEM Early College High School in Harlandale ISD after completing eighth grade.
“It’s really fun, and you can make it your own,” Ramirez said about coding. She was scrolling through her digital portfolio, which included a floppy bird style game she was especially proud of.
“The hardest part is like trying to make sure there’s like no glitches or like no mistakes added into it,” she explained.
For Ramirez, the best part of Vision Coders was the ability to combine two passions: gaming and art. Someday, she said she would like to teach coding to her own students.
