The Piedmont Unified School District has implemented the Computer Science Teachers Association (CSTA) national standards, creating a framework for subjects covered in computers courses for all students K-12.

According to the CSTA website, the goal of the standards is to provide opportunities for teachers and students to “better understand the computing disciplines and to more successfully prepare themselves to teach and learn.”

Computer science teacher Rajendra Shrivastava will be lead the implementation of the new standards. He said that most states have their own teaching standards for core subjects like English and math. In California, these are covered in the Common Core; however, electives like computer science are often completely ignored, leaving a conspicuous rift in the curriculum.

Computer science teacher Nathan Mattix said that the parent community made a petition, which he signed, claiming that it was unjustifiable not to have a set structure for the classes. They presented this petition to the school board, hence the adoption of the new standards.

“The petition received a lot of attention from the broader community as it is rare for a school to adopt meaningful computer science standards,” Mattix said.

An anonymous teacher sent him an email, which read, “That PUSD is explicitly stating that it wants meaningful standards instead of nonsense AND IS ACTING ON IT is a big deal. That makes you leaders in our discipline.  What you are doing needs to be shouted from the hilltops.”

Mattix agreed that it was a very convincing petition and that its successful result is something for the entire Piedmont community to be proud of.

“It’s a great thing,” Shrivastava said. “The beauty of Piedmont adopting standards is that knowledge is worldwide. You can go to Bali or Mexico City and it would not be much different.”

Mattix said that both the AP Computer Science and Joy of Computing classes coincided with the CSTA standards so no changes were needed.

However, other courses will be changed dramatically, like Web Design and Computer Applications, which will be redesigned as Exploring Computer Science.

“I think not only will it be a better course, it will be more interesting for students,” Mattix said.

In addition, new courses will be added “in the near future,” Mattix said.

Non-curriculum related difficulties have emerged in the process of altering the courses. The main problem, Shrivastava said, is the need to invest in new computers, software and teachers. It is hard to find staff members that are sufficiently qualified to train students in all of the required material for CSTA. In addition, existing teachers have to be retrained.

Mattix is among them. CSTA requires a robotics portion of the Exploring Computer Science course, an area in which he has no prior experience. Shrivastava will have to assist him.

“Everybody has to become a piece of a larger machine,” Shrivastava said. “It’s no longer their way or the highway.”