Minecraft Esports for Fresno County (and beyond!)

Build 2 Learn is a collaborative effort between the Office of the Fresno County Superintendent of Schools (FCSS) and Microsoft to provide access to Minecraft Education across Fresno County as a pilot towards an expanded system across California. Within Fresno County alone there are over 200,000 students with over 75% of those student meeting the criteria for Free and Reduced Lunch. FCSS has observed that the majority of districts in Fresno County do not have access to Microsoft accounts which are required to access Minecraft Education. If these statistics are at all similar across California, then millions of students do not have access to Minecraft Education!

Build 2 Learn's initial pilot seeks to:

1. Bridge the gap in existing access by providing Microsoft account access to educators and groups of students (classrooms/clubs/etc.) in order to give them learning opportunities using Minecraft Education
2. To provide a common space for students across Fresno County to be able to build and compete together within and between districts
3. Establish tenant policies that provide limited access to Minecraft Education along with storage space and restricted Teams communication
4. Develop use policies
5. Build and host resources to support educators use of Minecraft Education to support their classroom learning objective as well as opportunities to build with other students
6. Design Minecraft Education Tournaments that can cross district boundaries
7. Be an incubator for schools/districts to see for themselves the creativity and fun that students have when using Minecraft Education so that they may expand their own systems to provide this beneficial tool for all students
8. Provide an ever expanding opportunity to build, play and compete in Minecraft Education regardless of location and economic status