Background
Franklin high school is located in the urban inner city and is proud of its ethnic and cultural diversity. 39% of the school's students are Asian, 33% are African-American, 23% are Caucasian, and 5% are Latino. Franklin is located in a low-income area; 40% of its students receive free lunches. Franklin has innovative programs for its students, such as an Outdoor Education program that includes a ROPES course and Project FAMILY where students investigate differences between ethnic communities. Like many inner city schools, Franklin has its share of challenges. In 2000, only 28% of its students met Washington State's standards in Mathematics, and only 48% met them in Reading. Franklin's demographics demonstrate that the Cisco Networking Academy Program can be utilized successfully with ALL students.

The Numbers
Franklin High School's Cisco Networking Academy Program boasts a 100% retention rate for its female and male students and an average participation rate of 40% for female students. The Academy's first class was in January 2001, and since that time, it has held two-sections of semesters one and two, one of semester three, with semester four commencing February 4, 2002.

How did Franklin High School Networking Academy program successfully recruit and retain high school girls into Information Technology (IT) classes in this urban community?

Recruitment
Each semester Franklin hosts a 2-hour orientation on Women and IT that includes information on the Cisco Networking Academy Program. The orientation is for female students and features female rolemodels, and it is given during lunch so participants are treated to free pizza and refreshments. The orientation is hosted by IGNITE, a community-based organization dedicated to increasing the number of female students seeking careers in technology. To read more about IGNITE's successful efforts, see their profile on the Gender Initiative Web site. IGNITE PROJECT

The girls who attend the orientation (an average of 120) learn of it via the school bulletin, the career center and through word of mouth.

Other recruitment strategies include:

• working collaboratively with the counseling office and the career center to enlist their help in "selling" the girls on the Academy;
• holding a drop-in time during the lunch period for students to come look around the lab, and become comfortable with technology;
• and having an instructor who herself is a female role model. Ms. Lynch not only instructs for the Academy, she also holds an MBA in Information Systems, is a computer field service technician, and is a college professor at the City University, where she teaches graduate level computer classes.

Prerequisites
Franklin has no prerequisites for its Academy program, and as a result, many students come with little or no computer skills. To ensure that students have the baseline computer knowledge they'll need to be successful, the first six weeks of class time are used to fill in the gaps in computer knowledge some students may have. The instructor customizes the introductory portion of the Academy curriculum to the student's needs after she administers a questionnaire that assesses their computer and math skill level.

Success in the Classroom

"The CISCO Networking Academy Program at Franklin High School affords an equal opportunity for success for both the student and teacher." -Barbara Lynch, M.B.A. Information Systems, Instructor, Franklin High School

Ms. Lynch's 100% retention rate in semester's one and two are clearly the result of the amount of thought and effort she has put into retaining her students, many of whom begin the Academy Program with only a minimum background in computer usage. Some of her strategies include:

• Adding liveliness to the curriculum whenever possible - one way she does this is by having the class work in groups, which she chooses. Initially she'll have students who have similar (comfort levels) work with each other, but at four to six weeks, Ms. Lynch mixes up the students, based on gender and race. She also recruits the "whiz" kids in the class to be her helpers so that they don't intimidate the other students.
• Above all, Ms. Lynch wants to make the classes fun, and to that end, she has developed a "Petting Zoo" which consists of older computers. Each student group receives a computer to take apart and investigate how it functions, e.g. internal components, cabling, motherboard, etc. This helps students who are unfamiliar with the computer overcome their fear of "breaking" them (disproportionately female students). Ms. Lynch also takes the time to go through the basic tools used in computers and networking, such as a screwdriver, multimeter, materials needed to create data cables (diagonal cutters, wire stripper), and this is very helpful, as many students, especially the girls, haven't used these before.
• Ms. Lynch asks her students to bring two things to the class each day "a sense of humor and patience."

Contact
Barbara Lynch, M.B.A. Information Systems
Instructor
Franklin High School
3013 S. Mount Baker Blvd
Seattle, WA 98144
blynch@seattleschools.org
206-252-6150

School Web site
http://www.seattleschools.org/area/ main/index.dxml