When I first took over the Video Gaming class in 2019, a female coworker walked in to ask me a question. As we were talking, she looked around the room and asked me "Where are the girls?" I glanced around the room and sure enough, she was right. I didn't have a single female student in that class. As a new teacher, I was focusing all my attention on the material and I hadn't even noticed. I checked my other classes and they were all very boy heavy as well. The classes that I had that did have girls only had one or two.

Since then, I have made it my effort to make that my class did not feel like a "boy's club" and that everyone felt welcome and included. Once I became aware of the issue, it didn't take me long to start building up my female attendance. I remember very fondly the first time that I had a class with more girls than boys. It took me three years to make the change from almost no girls to equal representation. Unfortunately, keeping numbers high is a challenge and it fluctuates year to year, especially since our school as so many awesome related arts programs that our female students enjoy.

Girls are important to coding and it's important that they feel welcome and represented. In spring of 2024, I met some representatives from the Girls Who Code organization and I immediately knew that this was something our school needed. I started the club that next school year.

The goal of our club is to give young ladies who are interested in computer science the opportunity to hang out with others who share their same interests. We practice coding, but also study the history of women and other under represented communities in computer science.