Computer Science Department History
2006-2007: The computer courses available to students were Keyboarding, Computer Concepts and Advanced Computer Concepts, Visual Basic I and II, and Web Design. All computer courses were taught in the Business Department. Mr. Derek Miller started teaching at Yorkville High School. Mrs. Martha Johnson was the only other computer teacher, and taught all of the Keyboarding courses.
2007-2008: No new courses were added to the department, but new curriculum was created for Advanced Computer Concepts and Visual Basic II. Advanced Computer Concepts introduced the components of a computer, video production, and the history of the computer industry while Visual Basic II was changed to focus strictly on game design.
The YHS Freshman Academy
2008-2009: The freshman academy opened in the fall of 2008. Advanced Web Design, which would later be called Web Design II, was taught for the first time this year. The curriculum for Computer Concepts and Web Design was rewritten. Computer Concepts added mail merging and Web Design began to focus more on the best practices of using HTML and CSS to better lead into the more advanced concepts in Advanced Web Design. Mrs. Martha Johnson retired from teaching after this school year and this was the last year that Keyboarding was taught at Yorkville High School. Mrs. Kim Etienne began teaching at Yorkville in the fall, but she did not teach any computer classes until the next year.
2009-2010: AP Computer Science was taught for the first time this year. 22 students took the class in this first year and 13 took the AP exam. Nine students passed the exam and four earned the highest score of five. Visual Basic I and II were changed to Computer Programming I and II, and both courses were changed to the C# programming language. Advanced Computer Concepts moved from Access to MySQL for databases. Mrs. Etienne began teaching Computer Concepts and Mr. Robert Krawczyk began teaching at Yorkville High School.
2010-2011: Computer Concepts and Advanced Computer Concepts were renamed Computer Formatting and Applications I and II and more of an emphasis was placed on formatting letters in the first course. Computer Programming II began to use the XNA framework to create videogames for the Xbox 360. 10 students took AP Computer Science and eight took the exam. Five earned passing grades on the exam and three earned a score of five.
2011-2012: Mr. Krawczyk began teaching Web Design I. 11 students took AP Computer Science and this was the first year Yorkville required everyone to take the AP exam. Four students passed the exam with one student earning a five.
2012-2013: Mr. Miller and Mr. Krawczyk co-taught a section of Computer Programming I this year. Eight students took AP Computer Science. This was the first year every student passed the exam. In addition, three students earned a 5 on the exam. Mr. Miller was a grader for the AP Computer Science exam this year and graded the GridWorld question.
Stephen Johnson: First Senior Student of the Year
2013-2014: This was the last year for GridWorld on the AP Computer Science exam. 11 students took the class and five passed the exam. Mr. Miller graded the exam again this year, and ended up grading the scramble word and trio questions.
2014-2015: 17 students took AP Computer Science this year with 12 passing and five earning the highest possible score. Computer Programming II moved from XNA to the Unity game engine. The curriculum for all courses in the department was rewritten following the district's SAC process. The Computer Science Department was officially approved as a new department. Stephen Johnson was the department's first senior student of the year, who went on to study computer science at Champlain College in Vermont.
2015-2016: Computer Science Advanced Studies began this year with Computer Security, Operating System Design, and User Interface Design as the first strands. Computer science was also taught at the middle school for the first time with the start of the Applications and Computer Science Explorations course for seventh grade and the Computer Science Basics class for eighth grade. Chase Pranga was the Computer Science Senior Student of the Year, and went on to study computer science at Northern Illinois University. 10 students took AP Computer Science with five passing and three earning the highest score of five. Mr. Miller graded the AP exam this year and graded the log message question.
2016-2017: Computer Science Advanced Studies added four new strands with the addition of App Development, Database Programming, Programming Challenges, and Network Programming. Mrs. Mickey Nauman joined the department to teach Computer Programming classes. AP Computer Science was split into two sections for the first time.
