ROANOKE, Va. – A new grant will give students in rural Virginia the tools they need for the future.
On Monday, Gov. Ralph Northam announced more than $1.3 million in state grants to support the implementation of Virginia’s Computer Science Standards of Learning.
Floyd County Public Schools will receive $77,166 each year for the next three years to work with the Science Museum of Western Virginia and Virginia Tech to train teachers and create a computer science curriculum for K-12 students.
The museum’s director of philanthropy, Mary Roberts-Baako, said that kids need to learn computer science because it can be used in just about any job, from agriculture and farming, to marketing or medicine.
“If we do not invest in it, in education, then we are really doing our students a disservice in preparing them for the 21st century workforce," Roberts-Baako said.
Once the curriculum is developed, it will be made available online so other schools across the commonwealth and the region can use them too.