Microsoft mentors help Young Women's Academy students

Ninth-graders at YWA this year have teamed up with Microsoft to bring female professionals in the world of computer science to share lessons and advise about thriving in a male-dominated field. Two San Francisco Bay-based mentors with Microsoft Philanthropies’ Technology Education and Literacy in Schools, or TEALS, program have worked with YWA students since the beginning of the school year using special distance learning software to impart instruction on computer science initiatives. On Sept. 18, 2019, though, the two professions flew to El Paso to meet with the students face to face and do some hands-on mentoring and teaching. TEALS connects classroom teachers with tech-industry volunteers to create sustainable computer science programs in high schools throughout the country. Coronado, El Paso, Chapin, Austin and Andress high schools also work with TEALS. However, YWA’s all-girls enrollment allowed Microsoft to assign a uniquely all-female mentoring team to the school. (Leonel Monroy, Jr./El Paso ISD)