Suggestions and Considerations for District-wide Implementation with Abby Funabiki

In this interview with Abby Funabiki, we discuss the differences between for-profit and nonprofit CS education organizations, the importance and ability for nonprofits to collaborate with others, CS as the new digital divide, how to get started with CS implementation with limited or no extra funding, suggestions and considerations for district-wide implementation, and much more.

  • welcome back to another episode of the

    csk8 podcast my name is jared o'leary

    in this week's episode i'm interviewing

    a fellow co-worker abby funabiki

    in this particular episode we are going

    to discuss the differences between

    for-profit and non-profit cs education

    organizations

    the importance and ability for

    non-profits to collaborate with others

    something that many for-profits cannot

    do computer science as the new digital

    divide

    how to get started with computer science

    implementation with limited or no

    extra funding some suggestions and

    considerations for district-wide

    implementation

    and so much more friendly reminder you

    can find

    links that we discuss in the show notes

    for example some of the discussions on

    cs4all's resources like the visions

    framework and the scripps workshop

    so you can find that by clicking the

    link in your app or by going to

    jarrodoleary.com and clicking on the

    podcast

    tab with all that being said i hope you

    enjoyed this interview with abby

    funabiki which will now begin with an

    introduction by abby

    well i'm abby funubiki i'm the associate

    executive director at boot up

    professional development

    at boot up i'm lucky enough to work with

    school districts across the country

    as they implement district-wide computer

    science for all

    initiatives i get to spend time learning

    about

    districts uniqueness and do whatever i

    can to support

    their vision for what computer science

    looks like to them

    can you tell me the story of how you got

    into non-profit management

    so i'm a weirdo because unlike most

    people i've always

    known what i wanted to do when i was

    in middle school and high school i

    visited my uncle john

    where he worked at the ford foundation

    he was a

    deputy director there and we walked

    around this super cool building

    and i learned that his job was basically

    to support

    all these amazing projects and the

    people behind those projects

    i was like you can do this as a job and

    since then

    i studied politics in undergrad

    because that was the closest thing i

    could think of to working in nonprofits

    and eventually i earned an mpa which

    i call the mba for nonprofits

    a common thread throughout my nonprofit

    career has been basically supporting

    really neat ideas and the people behind

    them

    now as a leader at boot up i still see

    my role as making sure our districts

    as well as my colleagues have what they

    need to do

    awesome things and to use their

    expertise

    and enthusiasm to do awesome things

    so connecting the two things the

    district and

    our pd facilitators and then stepping

    back

    and seeing what they do come to life is

    what i love doing and what i've always

    known i would like doing

    so i'm wondering if you could talk about

    the difference between non-profit

    and for-profit organizations so

    obviously there's

    for-profit the goal is to make money

    usually for shareholders and things like

    that but

    what are some of the more like

    ideological differences that you see

    between non-profits versus a for-profit

    good question

    so like you said the legal difference is

    basically a tax thing

    so a non-profit all profits need to go

    back into the organization

    one clarification i think some people

    don't get is non-profits still

    need to make a profit it's just that

    those profits don't go to individuals or

    owners

    as far as the nonprofit field as a field

    i see a lot of differences i'm lucky

    enough

    to work in a field where virtually

    everyone cares about what they're doing

    there's this culture of being able to

    take strategic risks

    and being a safe place to experiment

    on things that maybe the government is

    supportive of causes but can't be as

    experimental as

    non-profits in my experience

    working on non-profits has been that i

    get to wear many hats

    and to me as a generalist that makes all

    the difference so everything's project

    based

    no day looks like another and you have

    to be really responsive to

    change while still sticking to your

    mission

    and values i also wanted to add that

    non-profits are a really cool space for

    collaborating

    it's sort of a non-profit mantra to not

    duplicate

    services and to share and collaborate

    instead of reinventing the wheel

    i think collaboration and being able to

    learn from each other

    and learning ourselves new things every

    day is another

    unique thing about the nonprofit world

    yeah that's a good point i don't really

    have

    a lot of experience in corporate

    environments but the

    places that i used to work like when i

    was a manager at blockbuster it's not

    like we'd go to hollywood video and be

    like hey how can we help you

    when i was working as a stainer in a

    closet shop we weren't going to

    competitors and going hey how can

    we help you make higher quality

    finishings for your fancy closets and

    whatnot so

    that is a really good point because at

    boot up in particular we're constantly

    working with other organizations and

    like hey

    here's what we're good at how can this

    potentially help you or what questions

    do you have who can we connect you with

    yes 100 one thing that you and i have

    talked about before is

    a lot of people ask or they tell me i

    want to start a nonprofit

    you know what advice do you have and my

    advice is

    don't do it you know see if it or exists

    so i have a lot of respect for our

    founder

    ari because he did that due diligence he

    did his research on what was out there

    in our field and it wasn't until he

    realized the need for district-wide

    high-quality professional development

    in elementary computer science wasn't

    being fulfilled

    that he founded boot up and he asked for

    help

    doing the research of what was out there

    and at the elementary level

    there were some really great ways of

    getting started

    that benefited like i've talked about

    those early adopter teachers

    you know so the teachers and the

    districts who have the ability to

    attend pd and to do the extras

    so there really was a missing component

    that was district-wide

    that could bring all teachers along and

    that was high quality

    in that the pde would be over time

    and it would really be a partnership a

    commitment between the district

    and boot up over the long haul to make

    sure that the program

    truly was sustainable equitable reaching

    all students and teachers

    yeah that was a really good explanation

    thank you so

    now that you've kind of explained what

    the difference is between like

    non-profit and for-profit

    what made you want to focus specifically

    on a non-profit

    dedicated to education and why social

    justice in particular

    i've always felt strongly about this i

    think it stems from

    my relatives experience so all of my

    japanese american

    relatives like many others were interned

    during world war ii

    what i think is really interesting is

    the president

    and most americans were supportive of

    incarcerating

    this entire demographic based on what

    they looked like

    and so i think this history and a lot of

    other american history has

    perhaps oddly made me really deeply

    patriotic

    and to me patriotism means you know

    supporting each other

    so i would say that my relatives

    experience and my

    own experience has propelled me towards

    non-profits and a career in social

    justice also

    i'd have a great immediate family who's

    always spoken out against discrimination

    of any kind

    so i grew up knowing it was an important

    piece

    of who i am to answer the question about

    education i know that education can

    sometimes seem like the catch-all

    solution for any problem but personally

    i really do think

    supporting public education can make all

    the difference

    in practical senses it's something that

    should

    reach you know every single person

    in the u.s i'd really see it as

    having the potential to be a true

    equalizer if we were to support it

    to the extent that it needs to be

    supportive i was

    lucky enough to go to a good public

    school

    and i have also had a lot of experience

    working

    in school districts and areas where

    based on

    your zip code your chances of graduation

    are significantly lower so yesterday

    when i interviewed joanna

    i'm pretty sure she said she started

    computer science classes in middle

    school

    so like having that kind of opportunity

    in the 80s when most people didn't even

    have computer science classes in the

    high school like it makes a huge

    difference

    so what you're able to do in your public

    education experience can have a profound

    impact in terms of

    what you do for leisure for career for

    whatever i'm curious for you

    what led to your interest into

    specifically

    a education nonprofit that focuses on

    computer science

    as i share with a lot of people in our

    field i didn't know anything about

    computer science or coding

    until more recently basically until i

    started thinking about this position

    so i've always felt really strongly

    about the digital divide

    but i didn't quite connect the dots that

    computer science

    is the current digital divide until 2015

    a computer science for all program was

    implemented through my foundation at the

    school district i worked at

    that was the first time i was exposed to

    computer science and i got to see it

    first hand kindergartners coding

    using code.org and scratch walking

    around their classroom and

    seeing them talk to each other be

    creative

    show me their storyboards and what was

    inspiring them to make their story

    another piece is that i'm just super

    passionate as i mentioned about public

    education

    and right now i think equitable access

    to computer science

    is a huge factor in public education

    right now

    and and closing the equity gap one more

    thing that i noticed since i have been

    learning more about computer science

    is that now i see it and use it in

    everything you and i were recently

    talking

    how we can decompose and iterate

    to become better leaders yeah

    computational thinking in particular is

    one of those frameworks that can apply

    to so many different contexts so it's

    interesting to

    apply it to something like leadership

    yeah once you connect the dots yeah

    okay so you go into non-profit

    management and you're doing all these

    cool things

    can you tell me a story of what it

    looked like when

    all those efforts that you put into a

    non-profit organization when it actually

    materialized

    into something through a partnership

    with a district or school so i

    am very lucky i feel like i get to see

    this almost every day

    so to me whenever i see our facilitators

    connected to a district and really

    hearing them meeting them where they're

    at

    and giving them the tools that they can

    run with to support their own computer

    science initiative

    to me is seeing my efforts and our

    team's efforts materialize

    another wonderful example is our

    partnership that you and i are working

    on with the wyoming department of

    education

    and american institutes for research to

    me that's

    sharing with a large audience how our

    work terrier lies

    into a great partnership so for

    background

    basically we are working on a project

    together to create

    culturally relevant curriculum you're

    creating that integrates computer

    science with

    wyoming's new state indian education for

    all standards

    this is super cool because it involves

    your curriculum

    it involves our facilitators

    professional development and

    it's an instance where we get to work

    directly with teachers even more than

    usual

    because we are requesting feedback and

    letting their feedback

    create real change in what we're doing

    yeah in particular in the curriculum

    itself

    so typically like we get feedback after

    every single pd but for the curriculum

    it's like hey let's collaboratively

    refine this yes so they're going to have

    this great ownership over it when it's

    ready

    because of that let's say somebody's in

    district and they're like okay this

    sounds great i would love to be able to

    work with a non-profit or

    to be able to implement computer science

    in my schools like

    right now i'm just a single teacher

    who's doing this in my class but i want

    this to be

    a district-wide thing so we can address

    some of the equity issues

    but there's no funding in their state or

    in their

    county or whatever so what would you

    recommend for those educators who want

    to get started with this

    but they currently don't have funding to

    support it

    that's a good question and i get it a

    lot

    so my advice is usually if i could

    encourage a district to do one thing to

    really get started with computer science

    in their district it would be

    to find or recruit a champion in their

    district who can really own

    whatever this looks like to them so

    basically this needs to be someone who

    has the capacity and the time and

    hopefully

    the incentive or you know salary

    basically to be able to run

    with the initiative so the one who's

    doing research to find

    potentially ed providers or even to do

    the pd themselves and bring it to their

    teachers so

    a big thing with me is finding a

    champion for

    computer science in a district and to me

    everything else follows

    okay so once districts do have funding

    and they're like yeah we're totally on

    board this is cool we want to do

    something

    how does that team then take things so

    that it

    becomes district-wide so in terms of

    planning for and implementing

    computer science beyond just a small

    implementation

    i've learned a lot of this from our

    districts i mentioned that i get to work

    with

    all types of district leadership across

    the country so to me

    every implementation is going to look

    different

    so it's important for them to define

    what their plan for district-wide

    computer science

    looks like i think you know me well

    enough to know that i don't necessarily

    there's

    one correct way to do anything right

    and so that being said i also wouldn't

    recommend we come in and do everything

    for them either

    i don't think that that would be a

    sustainable program

    so yeah a district really learning what

    their vision for computer science is and

    there are some

    great tools out there to help do this or

    maybe that just means

    speaking internally and knowing what

    direction they want to go in and then

    pursuing that direction

    i've heard this from several different

    people including professors and

    other famous people and whatnot who've

    talked about like the quality of the

    questions that you're asking in your

    life will have a direct

    impact on the quality of your life

    itself i'm wondering what kind of

    questions do you wish

    more administrators asked when

    considering

    cs implementation in their district and

    how those particular questions might be

    able to have a direct

    impact on their district-wide

    implementation

    a big thing for any district focused on

    equity

    when thinking about their implementation

    model

    i would recommend that they ask

    themselves who are we missing

    what do we need to do to ensure that the

    students participating

    are either all of our students receiving

    computer science

    instruction equitably or that the

    students that are receiving it reflect

    your district demographics as a whole so

    are we reaching

    our students in special education are we

    reaching

    our students that can't attend an

    after-school program

    or who choose not to take an elective

    the big question is

    who are we missing as a district to me

    this also means thinking about

    more logistically who's teaching

    computer science

    if it's classroom teachers does this

    mean that only their

    you know 20 30 or so students will

    receive computer science

    or is there a way that we can reach all

    students

    one concern i often share with districts

    when they're just starting out

    and to ask themselves are you focusing

    on

    your teachers that aren't just early

    adopters the one thing that makes

    boot up special is that we're really

    good at bringing

    all district teachers along so there are

    those early adopters who have gone above

    and beyond

    and have attended computer science pde

    or other pd themselves in order to reach

    all students

    i think that means meeting all the

    teachers where they're at

    and bringing them all along together

    district-wide and i think we're

    very good at that with our district-wide

    approach what are some things

    that either you or districts have

    thought like

    oh yeah this would be a great idea for

    our particular district but ended up not

    working out

    as planned one that comes to mind

    is recruiting only

    your most motivated teachers you know so

    the teachers who often are

    already the teachers doing everything

    anything and everything

    to support their students are often the

    ones who also get

    this new subject put on their shoulders

    so i think

    it is sometimes a mistake to start with

    voluntary or to recruit

    those teachers when to me it's much more

    powerful

    to do an entire grade level or to do an

    entire district of teachers

    so they all can learn and kind of

    come up together as a cohort and your

    experience

    is both with boot up and then just

    observing what's going on with

    implementation across the country do you

    have

    any example case studies that you can

    point to is like here's an example of

    how one district implemented things but

    here's another example of how

    another district implemented things in a

    different way i think every single

    district

    i've worked with has modified their

    implementation

    in a way that works for them so they all

    have separate case studies

    i developed this questionnaire that i

    often share with new districts

    and have done presentations of questions

    to ask yourself

    when implementing a computer science

    initiative that kind of define

    the different case studies so they're

    questions like

    what will professional development look

    like will it be mandatory or voluntary

    what will classroom implementation look

    like will that be mandatory or voluntary

    and if it's not mandatory how will you

    enforce this expectation

    the goal is to get district to start

    thinking about these questions in order

    to guide

    the creation of their individual plan so

    depending on what they answer

    you know they can say you know no

    professional development is going to be

    voluntary

    however we are going to provide this

    incentive of such and such

    you know or we are going to recognize

    them at a board meeting or something

    i often also engage them in thinking

    about what curricula

    and what platforms they want to use to

    make sure it's something that will work

    for them

    and then who overall is supporting their

    program

    so based on the answers to these

    questions i can think of a bunch of

    different case studies

    yeah and if anyone's interested in

    exploring this more in terms of like

    well i need to think through those

    questions more cs for all has a lot of

    resources that can help with that like

    the scripps workshop as well as the

    cs visions framework yeah which i did

    two podcast

    episodes on and i'll link to those in

    the show notes but they're very helpful

    for like thinking through

    all these things in terms of planning

    and implementation and whatnot

    absolutely

    so knowing you and having worked with

    you i know that you are a very hard

    worker

    and are often working far more than the

    minimum i imagine

    and i'm curious how do you take care of

    yourself

    and try and prevent the burnout that can

    come with working so much

    that's a good question and i think i am

    getting better

    at taking vacations and making sure i

    take time off or when i finish a big

    project

    make sure i celebrate that a little bit

    before just

    moving on to the next one i've actually

    really liked

    all of your suggestions from your guests

    in these podcasts

    i guess one thing i've talked about with

    some of our staff is

    how nice full day vacations and full

    week vacations

    are as opposed to just spreading out

    time off you know in half days or short

    amounts of time

    it's really nice to completely get away

    and focus on the other things

    for a couple days i think yeah it's

    important because

    like you've said it to me where it's

    like oh yeah like i had to work out

    over the weekend so i'm planning on

    taking like a half day or two

    and then you have said well it'd

    probably be better if you took like a

    full day off

    and then that way your brain isn't like

    half committed to resting for

    and half committed to working for most

    of the day and

    for somebody like me because my brain

    won't shut off and i'm just constantly

    thinking about work

    it's a lot easier for me to take a full

    day or a full week

    my friends and family make fun of me i

    have a lot of hobbies

    so that for some people if it's a good

    fit could be a self-care

    recommendation what are some example

    hobbies that you like to engage in

    i personally have found it's really nice

    to have like a tactical hobby

    and then also a mindless hobby and then

    also a hobby where you're learning

    something

    so it depends what mood i'm in depends

    on my hobbies but

    my biggest one is probably just reading

    you know so i do

    find time to read every day and i'm not

    saying i'm good at any of these things

    but i enjoy them

    so a more tactical one would be painting

    i grew up woodworking with my family so

    i continued to

    do some woodworking and projects in the

    garage

    my learning hobby right now is i'm

    learning the

    mandolin so taking lessons and i just

    feel like it's so good for my brain

    to be learning something brand new once

    a week that really pushes my brain to

    think in a new

    different way so i love backpacking

    mountain biking hiking when i have time

    i feel like it's important to also have

    you know more accessible hobbies

    so that's kind of where some of these

    less time-intensive

    copies come into play i'm curious what

    are your thoughts on

    research that's missing in relation to

    like district-wide implementation

    of cs education that you're just like i

    really wish we had more research on

    blank more practical research applied

    research

    is always a need especially in education

    i saw this meme or graphic

    on twitter one time that was this

    picture pouring out water and the

    pitcher said research

    and then there was this glass at the

    bottom and it said

    practitioners or education or something

    and then it was doing that thing that

    pitchers do where the water just

    slinks along the bottom of the picture

    you know and it's not going into the

    glass at all

    and to me that was pretty poignant

    of how sometimes research and education

    and teachers

    are not communicating as well as they

    could i know there has been great

    strides

    in this so don't want to ignore that but

    i think it's probably always

    a good focus yeah and you know that

    that's one of the reasons why

    every other week is unpacking

    scholarship episodes trying to help

    bridge that gap because i totally agree

    there's this like

    huge disconnect between research and

    practice and then research and policy as

    well

    or even policy in practice and

    scalability

    right so one thing that's been important

    in all of our research projects as you

    know is

    we haven't engaged in research projects

    where we

    as the experts are going into a single

    classroom and giving the teacher as much

    support as they need

    you know and expecting that to be

    representative of

    if that program were school-wide

    district-wide or

    statewide right you know so i think most

    of our research

    projects and what we hope to learn is

    what

    impact can we have that is also scalable

    yeah i'm curious what your answer will

    be to this

    since you know like the thought that's

    going into like the purpose behind the

    podcast and whatnot do you have

    suggestions

    or recommendations on how to improve the

    podcast one thing i would love to hear

    more about on the podcast and just in

    general is

    i'm really interested in learning more

    about broadband and providing

    access to the internet access to free

    information

    and i feel like it's really aligned to

    our organization and our fields focused

    on closing the digital divide

    as well as you know above and beyond

    that i think

    it could be a game changer for education

    for the us for equity i feel really

    strongly about it but

    i think i could learn a lot more about

    it yeah that would be an interesting

    topic to explore

    so it was like a few weeks now i did a

    call in to like state reps for csta to

    just kind of explain here's the state of

    computer science in arizona

    and some of the stats that i was giving

    the representatives that i was speaking

    to the staff members was like

    adequate access to broadband internet

    and like that i wasn't even aware that

    it was that high of a number

    especially for teachers that is

    interesting and the idea of 5g coming

    and potentially making it so we don't

    have to have wired connections

    everywhere

    and still be able to get good access to

    internet in more rural settings

    will be interesting to see how that will

    change in the next decade or so

    so where my people go to connect with

    you and the organizations that you work

    with

    the best place to find me is probably

    through

    my work at buddha and with that that

    concludes this week's episode of the

    csk8 podcast

    i hope you enjoyed listening to this

    episode abby is a wonderful co-worker

    and

    is really good at what she does so i'm

    grateful that she was able to come on

    this podcast

    if you'd be so kind please consider

    sharing a review on whatever app you're

    listening to this on or simply sharing

    this podcast with somebody else that

    would mean

    a lot to me and it would help spread the

    word about cs education

    pedagogy research practice etc stay

    tuned next week for another unpacking

    scholarship episode

    and stay tuned two weeks for now for

    another interview

    i hope you all have a wonderful and safe

    week

Guest Bio

Abby.png

As the Associate Executive Director at BootUp, Abby Funabiki leads the PD team and partners with school districts across the country to implement district-wide computer science for all initiatives. Abby serves as a Co-Principal Investigator on a National Science Foundation award with three school districts on the Wyoming Wind River Reservation to integrate computer science into social studies and ELA, in culturally relevant ways. A highlight of her work is learning from the many educators and social justice advocates she surrounds herself with. Abby also collaborates with national partners like code.org and the CSforAll Consortium to help district leaders understand what is needed to support #CSforAll.

Abby has worked in the nonprofit sector supporting public education for over ten years. Most recently, Abby worked for the Park City Education Foundation. In Park City, she managed grants and awards supporting over 50 district programs, led fundraising campaigns, and analyzed data trends and key indicators to evaluate program performance and impact. In 2013, Abby led Park City School District’s rebranding project as their Communications Director and created processes for the newly formed communications department. Abby has presented at state and local conferences on district implementation models, data analytics, and fundraising.

While attending Willamette University in Oregon, Abby interned for the Willamette University Foundation and McCormick Foundation in Chicago. She played on the tennis team and served as Team Captain her senior year. Go Bearcats! She has earned a Master’s degree in Public Administration from the University of Utah and wrote her thesis on nonprofit capacity building.

Abby is passionate about equity in public education and believes access to computer science during the school day can be a true equalizer.


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