Crash Creative’s Brandon Curtis believes learning what real-life careers are like in coding and computing is hugely important for Ridgeland High School’s students. “Our main goal with partnering with Walker [County Schools] is to show the students they can finish high school, go to college if they wanted and have the opportunity to do something in tech world,” he said.There are days at Ridgeland High School when Tim Warren learns just as much as the students he’s teaching.
“Students will come in with questions that I have to look up,” Warren said. “It’s been incredible how quickly some of them are taking to the material.”
Warren is a math teacher at Ridgeland, but through a new partnership with Crash Creative, a web design agency out of Chattanooga, he’s been instructing students in the ways of computer science. The partnership, which started last semester, is part of Ridgeland’s STEM Academy, a program designed to introduce students to what careers in technology and engineering will look like after they’ve graduated.
“We want to teach these kids what’s going to be useful out of high school and college in the workforce,” said Brandon Curtis, a Crash Creative representative who’s working closely with Ridgeland.
The partnership is planned to last for two years.