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Coding Classes Help Low-Income Students Prep for College

 Breakthrough New York prepares academically gifted students from low-income communities for college.
Breakthrough New York
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UPPER EAST SIDE — A program that helps academically gifted students from low-income communities is betting that new tech courses will help crack the code of higher education.

Breakthrough New York, a nonprofit that helps steer students from public middle schools to college, is offering coding courses for the first time to about 70 ninth-graders as part of its summer program.

The nonprofit hopes the courses will help bridge the digital divide between these students and their peers.

“We place all of our kids into college prep high schools, so they’re often in classes with more affluent peers who have experience with coding or technology from their middle schools,” said Rhea Wong, executive director of Breakthrough New York.

“We included these classes to put them on a more level playing field.”

Wong also noted that such skills could increase students’ chances of being accepted into top colleges or finding a job after they graduate.

Breakthrough New York accepts about 70 sixth-grade students each year into its rigorous program, with the goal of helping them get into college prep high schools and eventually college. The program has one location in Brooklyn and one in Manhattan, which is hosted by The Town School on the Upper East Side.

Students attend a six-week summer program before their seventh, eighth and ninth-grade years. They also attend Breakthrough’s after-school programs throughout the school year where they get academic support, prepare for high school admissions tests and get help with the high school application process. 

The classes are taught by college students chosen for Breakthrough's selective teaching fellows program.

Over the past five years, 100 percent of Breakthrough's students have gone on to college preparatory high schools, including the city’s specialized high schools and private schools such as Exeter, according to the nonprofit.

Wong said Breakthrough decided to implement a coding class this year because instructors noticed gaps in the students’ technology skills.

The coding class is based around Scratch, a free program that was developed by M.I.T. to teach people how to code. Students will learn how to code by creating games based on their lives, with each game including certain elements like animation, sound and a clear design.

“The idea will be that more sophisticated kids will create a very complex world with many different scenes,” Wong said.

The summer program just started this week, but Wong said students seem excited to learn the new technology.

Arlenny Cruz, a 14-year-old from The Bronx, was looking forward to class.

"It's interesting because it's something I've never done before," she said.

Yuan Chen, 13, from Manhattan, thought it would make up for some things he missed at her regular school.

"It's a nice opportunity because in schools we don't get to learn this, and it opens doors to computer engineering," she said.

Wong said the program would also offer new skills for students who are more advanced.

“We have a number of ninth-grade students who are very techie. We have one who taught himself how to programs apps and games,” she said. “The nice thing about Scratch is that it’s flexible. He’ll probably be able to design the next Google by the end.”