Member Profile: Michelle Laskowski

ByLawrence Tanimoto

Michelle Laskowski is the President of CSTA Washington for 2025-26, elected to a two-year term in June 2025.

Below is the Member Spotlight article on Michelle that initially appeared in the Dec 2023 CSTA Washington Connector.

Member Spotlight: Michelle Laskowski

michelle laskowski

Michelle Laskowski is the only CTE STEM teacher at Fife High School (Fife SD, pop: 900), a 10-12, Title 1 high school. She is also a graduate of the 2023 STEP CS program at UW. 

Current Courses

  • AP Computer Science Principles (~32 students) (Full year)
  • Introduction to Video Game Development (~25 students) (1 Semester)
  • Introduction to Cybersecurity (~35 students) (1 Semester)
  • Robotics I and Robotics II (40 and 15 students) (1 Semester)
  • Financial Algebra (~30 students) (Full year)
  • Criminal Law (~30 students) (1 Semester)

CS-related extra-curricular activities

  • Founder and Coach of FHS’s FTC Robotics team
  • Cyberstart America

CSEd moments of pride

  • Diversity and inclusion from all racial, socioeconomic and gender identities in my STEM course participation. 
  • Students taking the initiative to design and print parts for their robots
  • Students aspiring to pursue higher education in STEM after taking one of my courses

Biggest Challenge

  • As a small school, Fife HS offers limited courses for further content specialization.

On PSCSTA and STEP CS

I am grateful for PSCSTA and the PD and community they provide. After attending an in- person training in early 2023 for “Physical Computing”, I was inspired to incorporate LED light and coding projects into small extracurricular group activities in order to engage more students in CS.

The STEP CS program gave me the tools and confidence to take my courses content to the next level by learning how to host classroom discussions on the why’s in addition to the hows. The program also provided the opportunity to meet and collaborate with other CS teachers from the Puget Sound region which is crucial for our growing content field!

Background

  • BS in Math, M.Ed from LSU
  • 3.5 years teaching math and computer science in Louisiana
  • Initially hired as Conditional CTE after starting with Fife HS in 2020.   Now looking forward to National Board certification in CTE after completing program with Bates Technical College

To learn more, Michelle is also featured in the 3rd installment of the CSforAll Washington podcast

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