1. Vichi Jagannathan June 3, 2015
2014-15 California Region Year in Review
Laying the foundation for collaboration between local leaders in government, private sector, and nonprofit organizations to take
ownership of building a sustainable, diverse, and accessible CS education pipeline for students in their communities.
Where we are
TEALS will be
partnered with 34
high schools in
California in 2015-
16. In addition, 14
teachers in
California are now
trained and ready to
take over a CS
course themselves,
including 9 who are
handing off after
only one year of support. The
combination of trained and current
teachers will reach over 2400 students
in 2015-16.
In 2014-15, over 1300 students were
enrolled in TEALS classes in California, with over 400 enrolled
in AP CS.
Volunteer retention
Volunteers are the lifeblood of the TEALS program in
California, playing a vital role in helping to train a teacher and
serve as a mentor and role model for countless students. For
the 2015-16 school year, the California Region has the highest
volunteer retention rate of any TEALS region ever, with over
54% of the 92 volunteers from 2014-15 choosing to teach
another year. High volunteer retention creates a strong base
of volunteers who not only become more effective each year
in the classroom, but also enable faster expansion of the
program with fewer staff members and resources.
Government support
Throughout the 2014-15 school year, local government
leaders have formally expressed support for TEALS’ efforts in
California to increase access to computer science. These
public displays of support unify different stakeholders within
a community around increasing opportunity for students. In
tandem with their ability to quickly mobilize resources,
political leaders possess local credibility that inspires schools
and corporations to take ownership and responsibility over
the long-term success of CS programs in their nearby schools
in a way that TEALS staff alone cannot.
Representative Steve Knight (R-CA, 25th
) advocated for CS in
four high schools in his district in 2014. In 2015-16, TEALS will
grow from supporting four introductory courses that reached
300 students to supporting six courses (including 2 AP) that
will reach over 450 students. The Hart District, which houses
three of the schools, now organizes annual recruitment
events for local tech professionals interested in volunteering,
and coordinates their own interview process for matching
volunteers with schools, ensuring that the program will meet
their students’ and teachers’ needs. The success of the
program has ignited interest among representatives from
nearby districts in starting CS programs in their communities.
In June 2015, San Mateo County CIO Jon Walton will convene
a round table of tech company executives to discuss how
they can formally support, acknowledge, and encourage their
employees to volunteer in high school CS classrooms. This
event will set an example for how leaders from across the
industry can come together in support of CS education in
their local schools. Formal corporate acknowledgement of
employee time spent volunteering to teach CS will increase
the long-term sustainability of the volunteer pipeline and
lead to higher volunteer satisfaction and retention.
Private sector collaboration
The Level Playing Field Institute organized a community
meeting, sponsored and keynoted by Mitch Kapor, which
brought together over 100 members of the Oakland
community to discuss how to increase access to CS
opportunities for students, and to formally endorse TEALS’
partnership with OUSD as a critical piece of the effort.
Because of his extensive track record supporting diversity in
the tech industry, Kapor’s support validates the California
Region’s commitment to the Oakland community and raises
awareness among potential industry volunteers.
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
140
2013-14 2014-15 2015-16
Volunteer growth and retention
# Returning
volunteers
# New
volunteers
Year Schools
2013-14 10
2014-15 32
2015-16 34
Vichi Jagannathan
June 3, 2015
0
500
1000
1500
2000
2500
3000
2013-14 2014-15 2015-16
Students served
Students AP takers

2. Vichi Jagannathan June 3, 2015
Increasing diversity
The California Region has partnered with industry role models,
visionary teachers, and mission-driven nonprofits to increase
diversity within our classes with the goal of ultimately
matching the diversity of the communities we serve.
In March, over 400 students from 15 high schools attended
the first ever Bay Area Computer Science opportunity fair.
Designed to highlight the full range of diversity in computer
science, students heard from a panel of CS professionals, half
of whom were people of color, and three of whom were
female. Students also explored booths from 20 different
companies, colleges, and extracurricular programs.
Girls Who Code, Mission Bit, Hacker Fund, Square Code
Camp, and the Level Playing Field Institute are working with
TEALS’ partner schools in California to recruit a more diverse
base of students into our classes.
The California Region has prioritized supporting visionary
teacher leaders who are defying the odds to bring AP
computer science opportunities to the most underserved
student populations in the state in Oakland, San Jose, and
South Los Angeles.
Cross-industry effort
Employees from over 60 companies have applied to volunteer
to teach CS in a California high school in 2015-16. The
following companies have 4 or more employees (enough to
staff one school) signed up to volunteer.
These signups were largely
achieved via grassroots
recruiting efforts such as
word of mouth and
company mailing lists. With such high employee interest at
the largest tech companies in the state, TEALS is well-
positioned to open conversations with executives within the
Region at these companies and across the industry to
formalize their recognition of employees’ time spent
volunteering, and create structures that incentivize
participation. Formal engagement of management will ensure
the sustainability and retention of the volunteer pipeline
while greatly reducing the cost of finding new volunteers.
Opportunities and Recommendations
Formal acknowledgment of volunteer time across industry
Most companies do not formally recognize or acknowledge
their employees’ volunteer time with TEALS in the Region,
and recruiting efforts are largely grassroots and time-
consuming. The time is now to ensure long-term
sustainability and stability of the volunteer pipeline by
fostering ownership among tech companies for supporting CS
programs in local schools through formal recognition of
employees’ time spent volunteering, and commitments to
volunteer recruitment and retention.
Prioritization of diversity
While TEALS classes in California are more diverse than the
industry average, they do not accurately represent the
diversity of the populations in their schools. Schools,
teachers, and volunteers need to prioritize proactively
reaching out to students from underrepresented
communities, with guidance from the TEALS program.
Similarly, The California Region must place greater emphasis
on having open conversations about diversity and inclusion
with partners and stakeholders, including at recruiting events
and volunteer training.
Equitable expansion of school partnerships
While TEALS serves districts within California that reach high
numbers of underserved and underrepresented students (San
Francisco, Oakland, San Jose, etc.), within those districts
TEALS is currently partnered with disproportionately more
high-resource schools. Having built strong relationships and
track records of success with these districts, The California
Region can lead the charge to ensure equitable access to
computer science courses by proactively reaching out to the
lower-resource schools in each district that do not offer CS
and have not applied for a partnership.
When evaluating prospects for expansion, The California
Region can proactively expand to more underserved areas
such as East Palo Alto, Contra Costa County, and San Diego
which are close enough to the tech industry to support a
strong program.
Key Impacts in California
Increased students served by over 400% from 2013 – 2015.
Increased volunteer base by over 200% and achieved the
highest volunteer retention rate of any TEALS region in 2015.
Collaborated with government leadership to organize the first
round table of company executives to discuss formalizing
employee participation in CS volunteer teaching.
Mobilized industry role models, visionary teachers, and
mission-driven nonprofits to outpace state and industry
diversity standards within our CS classes.
0
20
40
% women % underrepresented minorities
Diversity comparison
2014 California AP CS takers 2014 computing industry
2014-15 California TEALS students
Cisco - 10
Google - 6
Microsoft - 6
Oracle - 5
Dropbox - 5
Yahoo! - 4
Apple - 4
Ebay - 4