Seventeen North Carolina school districts are piloting a program that state officials hope will change the way schools prepare teens for high-tech jobs. SparkNC debuted this fall, offering a menu of 55 online tech units and a program that lets teams of teens solve real-life challenges. It’s touted as “a whole new way to do school.”
“We began trying to imagine what it would look like in this future for our students in a world that’s completely been transformed by technology,” Lynn Moody, one of the founders, recently told the state Board of Education. “And we wanted to apply all of the innovative educational practices that we knew in a different way that might help us even think about how high school could look in the future.”
Moody, a former superintendent for Rowan-Salisbury and Rock Hill schools, was among a group of school district leaders who came up with the plan for SparkNC in 2022. It’s part of the state’s effort to prepare students for a future where jobs — and the technology those jobs rely on — change at warp speed.
Most of the pilot districts are east of the Charlotte region. One Spark lab is located at Cabarrus Virtual Academy in Concord. On a recent morning, 11th-grader Ke’verina Patrick was checking out the coding required to build a game in Roblox.
“Right now I’m just basically building, like, land. And, you know, like water and everything,” she explained.
Not just for techies
Students from all Cabarrus County high schools can participate. Patrick is among 133 who have signed on. She said she’s intrigued, but as for a coding career, “Absolutely not!”
“It is fun. I’ll probably have it as a side thing, for, like, entertainment purposes. But overall, I want to be a writer,” she said.
And that’s just fine. Organizers say Spark not only introduces students to specific skills that can lead to jobs, but cultivates the mix of independence and teamwork that will serve them well in any field.
“We think that this is what gives them a competitive edge in these high-wage and socially impactful careers,” Moody told the state board.
Ashley Short, principal of Cabarrus Virtual Academy, agrees. “Even if you’re not a techie kid and you’re not going to be a programmer, there’s something for everybody,” she said.
“This definitely taps into something that other programs can’t always tap into, which is that experimental, learn at your own pace, kind of self-directed style, which really works for a lot of our kids,” Short added.
Online classes and problem-solving teams
SparkNC is now a nonprofit group that’s getting $3 million a year from the General Assembly.
Students can choose their own slate of online lessons, which cover various aspects of artificial intelligence, computer systems engineering, cyber security, data analytics, Design UX/UI, software development and game development. Units include the ethics of AI, using analytics to build a better fantasy sports team and creating soundtracks for games.
Students who complete eight Spark units of their own choosing can get an elective credit. There are no grades. Instead, students create work samples. Nina Darnell, Cabarrus County Schools’ Spark lab leader, says those samples create a portfolio to use in job applications.
“If you’re interested in app building, you’re going to create an actual working app in those units,” she said. “If you’re interested in game development, you’re going to create characters, you’re going to learn about storyboarding, you’re going to learn about how to actually create a game in those units.”
Another aspect that’s popular in Cabarrus County is called Teamship. Students who apply are matched with a handful of counterparts from other Spark labs across the state. Each team meets online to solve problems posed by actual tech companies. For instance, Diana-Keziah Ebob, a student at Cabarrus-Kannapolis Early College High, worked on ways to help the Salisbury-based ApSeed track data on use of its “Seedlings,” which are touchpads that preschoolers use to learn reading, writing and counting.
Ebob says the first virtual meeting with strangers was awkward, “because everyone was really shy and nobody knew, like, you know, what they wanted to do and how we wanted to go about things.”
But Ebob, who says she wants a career in IT, says the team came together as they began their work. “When it came to researching the problem we all had one goal and one thing we wanted to achieve.”
Each team pitches its solution to company representatives who have been consulting with them.
Darnell, the lab leader, says that’s part of the program’s value.
“A lot of times those students are able to make connections, they’re able to gain actual internships from these opportunities, mentorship opportunities and things like that,” she said.
Despite the talk about a new way to do school, Spark is not designed to replace a traditional high school experience. It’s just one item on a menu of options that can help students prepare for college and or careers.
“Sometimes students will say, ‘Well, I’m taking college classes. Do I have to stop that and do this?’ Nope. You don’t have to stop that. You can do this and that,” Darnell said. She says Spark works well with Advanced Placement or career-tech classes as well.
The state’s two-year budget includes funding only for the pilot districts, but Spark leaders say the long-term vision is to expand statewide.
