Start of a New School Year – September 2023

Hope IT is preparing for a new school year.  We have new goals and ideas.  Please pray for the students that will come this year to our courses, for their parents and families, for the Hope IT partnering organizations, and for the Hope IT team.  We have seen how time, energy and experiences can reshape how our young students see themselves, God, and their future.

Goals for the 2023-24 School Year:

Hope IT is working on improvements from last year:

1. 1. Strengthen our partnerships: Continue to expand and deepen our relationship with our partners.
   2. Intermediate courses: Offer new set of courses with more IT industry-wide technology and techniques.
   3. Students be the teachers: One of Hope IT’s dreams is to guide students to have enough skill and confidence, that they can teach and/or co-teach our basic courses.
   4. Extra Class: Offer other opportunities beyond our courses, such as field trips to JPL for students, or other such events.

You will see some of these goals show up in our efforts.

Deepening work with partners:

The key to the effort of Hope IT is deepening our effort with our partners.  Hope IT is part of the holistic care of the student.  Once there is trust and common understanding of what Hope IT aims to do, and why that is compelling for young students, partnership is working better.  Hope IT can offer extended opportunities for students, but Hope IT does not have the resources or experience to guide and care for many of the core needs of the students.

This is where partnership is so key.  Hope IT saw some good partnership begin to foster last year, and we look to both expand to new partners, and go further with existing ones.  Below are a few examples of both:

• • We will have another Partner’s Luncheon in September, to explain the goals and courses Hope IT will offer this year.
    • • We have an advantage this year, now that some of our partners can share stories of both success and challenges their students encountered in dealing with Hope IT courses, and opportunities.
      • We could have a full room-full of partners, as 8 partner organizations could join us.  Last year, we have 4 partner organizations join us for the luncheon.
      • We can now ask better questions of what is working, and what is not.  One small change we made is start our courses a bit latter, at 10am, instead of 9:30am.  We can also look back at previous courses, and even our paid internship.
      • The partners that are invited (in alpha order): Door of Hope
        • • Elizabeth House
          • Harambee
          • Iglesia de la Communidad (in Highland Park)
          • Pasadena Church
          • Stars
          • Sycamores Foster Group Home
          • Thrive Learning Lab NW Pasadena
      • We were planning a Robotics course in September with Elizabeth House, in their new Mother and Child Well-Being Center, which they relaunched this August (see the above picture of our team at the relaunch event).  Elizabeth House is a new partner Hope IT is trying to work with.  Unfortunately, we had to cancel this course, as we did not receive enough sign ups.
      • Hope IT looks to help guide a senior in high school to what is possible at the college level.
      • Hope IT cannot function without the long-standing partnership from Knox Presbyterian Church, where our October and June courses are held, and where 94% of our funding for our laptops, Robotics kits, paid internship, and partnership luncheon comes from.
      • Hope IT also cannot be successful without the key partnership of Bridges, who provides our fiscal sponsorship (so tax deductible donations can be received), fiscal help to pay our interns via their work permit, offering the internship, and key monthly coaching.
        Finally, our support from you individually, from prayers, kind words of encouagement, and gifts in kind (4 laptops to date!!) are so key to allow Hope IT to continue.

Hope IT is so grateful for the partnership we have had, and continue to have.  We look forward to another good year.

Courses offered:

Hope IT is offering the same courses offered last school year.  We seem to have a rhythm with the 3 basic courses of Robotics, WordPress, and Solving Mazes with the Python programming language.

We are adding a new approach.  To date, we have only offered beginning courses.  Now, we will offer an intermediate course, on SQL (which is how programmers pull data out of a database.)  To prepare students for this, we are offering a 4th beginning course in January, on Data Analysis.

We have a full load of courses.  It will be a stretch for Hope IT to pull this off.  The schedule of courses is below.

Month	Description
October	Introduction to Robotics: Get hands on with the wiring, circuits, and components to make a robot.
January	Data Analysis (online): Create dashboards to present data with grids, line and bar charts, and filters.
February	WordPress (online): Create a website with no programming. Add pictures, videos, links, and a blog.
March	New Intermediate course on SQL & Databases: Learn this super important skill to pull data out of a database.
June	Solve Mazes with Python programming: Python is one of the most widely used programming languages for so many uses. Learn some of the basics, while having fun making a virtual robot get out of a maze.

We know, some of our efforts will work, and some may not pan out like we hope. We will keep working at it, trying to give students opportunities and allow them fun, expanded community with adults and IT professionals, and real IT skills.

We look forward to what God has in store for us this school year. Do continue to pray for us, our students, partners, and team.