Even as efforts to promote K-12 CS education forge ahead, there is a growing consensus that students must also be taught artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) in order to be prepared for the fast-changing world powered by AI/ML. How can ensure that we leverage learnings from two decades of CS education research and practice, and build on successes while mitigating missteps? This panel invites researchers with deep expertise in 'CSForAll' efforts for a timely discussion and sharing of valuable lessons from CS education efforts about pedagogies, attention to equity, and teacher preparation that will also benefit K-12 AI education.

To address racial and gender inequality in K12 STEM and computer science education, there needs to be mutli-pronged approach. In addition to the needed work for curricula that is culturally responsive and sustaining, inclusive of all student group, and positively welcomes the identities of historically marginalized people groups, K12 computer science teachers need to be equipped with the training and tools to implement the curricula, pedagogy, and instruction to mitigate the racial and gender gaps in K12 computer science education.

Computing has been historically taught as neutral and devoid of any connection with societies. But more recently, technical tools are taking center stage at societal problem solving, influencing policies and practices around issues such as surveillance, privacy, and algorithmic bias. In this sociopolitical moment, people across different efforts within K-12 computing education are calling for integration of computing with social sciences to center implications of technologies on peoples, communities, and societies. There are multiple facets to these efforts: studying K-12 student engagement with critical content to preparing K-12 educators and ecosystems, developing pedagogical frameworks, and redesigning existing high school computing program to center justice. This panel will present a broad range of efforts towards critical introduction of computing within K-12 settings. While briefly introducing themselves and their work, each panelist will answer the questions: (a) How does your work and experiences address critical computing education? (b) What are some barriers that you have encountered? And (c) How have you addressed these concerns within your designs? Overall, the panel will open the space for discussing, highlighting, and learning from this set of diverse and synergetic critical computing efforts within K-12 computing education.

Our current moment, where our global public health, race, and educational crises are converging, requires us to engage in a deep interrogation of our computer science (CS) and tech communities into the ways we uphold anti-Blackness. The increased weaponizing of data and surveillance against Black people, racial inequities in tech (e.g., access and opportunity for Black people), ousting of Dr. Timnit Gebru from Google, and continued examples of racial bias and algorithmic harms all point to a need to address how tech and computer science fields mimic the negative impacts of anti-Blackness in our classrooms, processes, and thinking. In addition to upholding the harms of anti-Blackness our computer science and tech spaces need a more concerted effort to make more space for Black people, especially Black girls and women in CS computer science and tech, not rest on our laurels. This BOF aims to open discussion about what is anti-Blackness, how it is embedded in our practices and processes in computer science and tech, and what we can collectively do as a community to make more room that bravely embraces the full humanity of Black people, especially Black girls and women.

Now more than ever, computer science teaching needs to reflect the interests and passions of the young people it serves. This is particularly true for students in Black, Latinx, and Indigenous communities. This panel of thought leaders will offer perspectives and valuable information grounded in research and theoretical literature that cultivate more meaningful, culturally relevant practices in K-12 CS Education. Participants will walk away with insights about the importance of this issue, the literature base, and practical applications for creating equitable CS classrooms and being advocates for positive change in CS classrooms and school communities.