Children First Fund

Thank you, Google.org, for supporting this year’s Chicago Public Schools Computer Science Inclusion Showcase! This event celebrates our students with disabilities in computer science classes, robotics clubs, and esports, creating a welcoming and joyful pathway to STEM.

This event directly reflects our core CPS priority: to ensure the rightful presence of every student with disabilities so they can fully engage in rigorous, grade-level instruction in the general education classroom, accessing the same opportunities as their peers.

To expand on this commitment, this year's event grew to include Unified Robotics teams, bringing students with disabilities and their general education peers together to collaborate. As one of our Unified Robotics student panelists shared during the event:

"Being on the robotics team makes me feel proud."

Elementary scholars demonstrated their skills coding Sphero Indi robots and BeeBots while high school teams from Lindblom, Lincoln Park, and Hancock wowed the crowd by showcasing their massive, ball-launching robots.

We are deeply grateful to Google.org for funding this critical work. We also want to thank our research partners at the University of Florida for training our teachers in Universal Design for Learning (UDL) to make computer science accessible for all, as well as Amazon.com and the CME Group Foundation for supporting the CPS robotics lending library that equips our classrooms with devices.

Thank you for helping us build a more inclusive future!