WPS Newsletter

January 2, 2025-Classes resume

January 11, 2025-Snowball Dance

January 17, 2025-No School/Staff PD Day

January 20, 2025-No School/Martin Luther King, Jr. Day

Welcome to 2025! I am super excited to tell you about an upcoming event I am helping host: Family Coding Night on January 13, 2025. The intended audience is grades Kindergarten through 5th grade and a parent/guardian. You might be thinking “My child is too young to code. Besides, when are they ever going to use coding?” Read on to discover more!

First, what is coding? You can search the internet for the term and find many definitions, stating basically the same thing. My favorite definition comes from careerfoundry.com, and it defines coding as “writing instructions for computers and other hardware.” Simple, to the point, easy.

Benefits of coding: Again, you can search the internet with the basic question “Benefits of computer coding” and get many results. You will quickly find repeated answers, though. Here are some of the answers I found in common to all the sites I read.

1) Problem solving. What is life full of? Problems! Learning to solve problems early in life will help develop successful strategies because it creates confidence in the child.

2) Math skills and computational thinking. Examples include sequencing, identifying patterns, breaking big jobs into smaller components, and spatial tasks (working with shapes, imagining how they might work together).

3) Collaboration and creativity. Students working together can achieve academic gains. Coding allows student creations to come to life, hence enhancing their creativity.

4) Make efficient plans. The process of planning can then be transferred to all areas of life.

5) Prepares kids for the future job market.

When will my kid ever use coding? Jobs such as software developers, quality assurance analysts and testers are projected to grow 17% from 2023-2033. According to one source, in 2021 a Web Developer was the “lowest” paid computer coding job, bringing in an average $78,000/year. Other examples of technology occupations include Software Developer, IT Project Manager, Computer Systems Analyst, and Cyber Security Specialist. Ms. Meier had a guest speaker in December from the ND Bureau of Criminal Investigations Cyber Crime Unit. He explained that his division gets called in to work with regular criminal investigations all the time because there’s usually some sort of technological element involved.

In conclusion, technology is almost everywhere, in every job. The more your child is familiar with it, the more successful they will be in their future job. Our Family Coding Night is simply an introduction to what could be a very bright future for your child. Be sure to look at the flier with registration instructions. We hope to see you there!

Web pages I visited to find this information were: U.S. Bureau of Labor and Statistics, CommonSense.org, Research.com, DeVry University, Fielding Graduate University, Code Galaxy, and digitalcommons.csp.edu

January 11th

Doors open to public: 7:30-8:00pm

Dance begins: 8:00pm

*Students are allowed to arrive to the dance until 9:00pm

*Middle school dance portion ends at 10:45pm

*High school dance ends at 12:00am