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Mackinaw City Public Schools may be small, but it delivers an exceptionally large computer science program. All 15 of its June graduates took a yearlong computer science class, and half completed an Advanced Placement computer science course.
They all learned from Lisa Rivera, who has been teaching computer science and Spanish for nearly three decades in the 137-student district located on the northern tip of Michigan's lower peninsula. She teaches a semester of computer science to 7th and 8th graders and a required yearlong introductory course to sophomores, who learn about artificial intelligence and Python programming. She also teaches AP Computer Science Principles and the more advanced AP Computer Science A.
Few of the nation's high schools, especially small ones located in remote settings, have offered students so much computer science for so long. Few require it. Remarkably, this school serving the 800 residents of Mackinaw City started teaching computer science even before Rivera arrived...