By Julia Gilban-Cohen.
With several high-profile cyber attacks on K-12 districts and vendors making headlines this fall, education leaders are under pressure to prepare more students for a much-needed cybersecurity workforce. A public high school in Baltimore, recently equipped with a professional-grade cybersecurity training environment donated by an industry partner, is piloting a program to do just that, and potentially model how it could be done by other schools across Maryland.The pilot program at Baltimore Polytechnic Institute (BPI) builds on an existing workforce training program at Maryland community colleges through BCR Cyber, a cybersecurity training, testing and workforce development company, extending opportunities for industry certification and job placement assistance to students before they graduate from high school.According to BCR Cyber President and CEO Michael Spector, the cyber range simulates an enterprise computer network, allowing students to practice identifying and responding to cybersecurity threats in a controlled environment. Training scenarios include ransomware attacks, insider threats and website defacement. Spector said employers working with BCR Cyber help inform the scenarios, which are updated with two new exercises annually.Unlike practicing within an organization’s actual network, Spector said the simulated environment allows students to experiment without disrupting real operations.“They’re not going to mess anything up,” Spector said. “Students go in … learn from their mistakes, and then again, right afterwards, we can push the reset button.”Spector said the company plans to begin with a pilot of approximately 15 students at BPI and eventually explore expanding the model statewide.BCR Cyber’s training and education initiative, Cyber Workforce Accelerator, through which the company has installed cyber ranges at community colleges throughout Maryland, is the bedrock of the company’s partnership with BPI. Through the initiative, higher education faculty can incorporate the technology into their courses, while students can pursue the company’s industry-recognized security operations credential.At BPI, Spector said BCR Cyber and school leaders plan to collaboratively develop a 40- to 48-hour preparatory curriculum designed to help high school students transition into the company’s certification training.Under the proposed model, participating students would enroll through a community college to pursue the credential before finishing high school, in addition to having access to BCR Cyber’s job placement assistance.Spector said the company’s consortium includes more than 40 employers that provide input on training needs and hire from its pool of trainees.For Josh Headley, BPI’s engineering department chair and AP Capstone course coordinator, introducing career-oriented training before graduation is partly about expanding students’ options once they graduate from high school. He said traditional degree requirements can create barriers to employment, particularly for students who cannot immediately pursue higher education because of financial or family circumstances.”We want to make sure that everyone has access,” Headley said, referring to in-demand career opportunities and pathways. “We are not sending people out of high school adrift without a rudder or a keel.”Moreover, Headley said the goal is to prepare students for different postsecondary pathways, whether they attend a four-year university, enroll in community college or seek immediate employment.Spector also pointed to experience requirements for entry-level security operations center positions, which he said can present obstacles for new workers. He noted that simulated workplace exercises could potentially help students demonstrate relevant practical training to prospective employers.“These students will now be able to walk into an interview and say that they have actual experience in the role that they’re trying to hire for,” he said.While the formal pilot is still being developed, students at BPI have already begun using the cyber range, logging approximately 25 hours of practice so far. According to Headley, some have even returned to school voluntarily on weekends for additional training.Among the first participants were students enrolled in the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps, a college-based officer training program. Headley said these students did not necessarily have extensive programming or cybersecurity backgrounds, but after an initial three- to four-hour training session, they were able to work through practice exercises independently.Headley described students improving through successive attempts after initially struggling with the material.”I think that we are going to learn through failure in almost every case, and I think this is the perfect scenario to do that,” he said.Still, incorporating the technology into the school’s existing coursework presents practical challenges. Headley said BPI’s curriculum is already crowded, leaving limited room for another formal course. During the current school year, participation will remain voluntary as educators experiment with formats including weekend boot camps and advisory-period activities.Eventually, he expects the technology to become part of existing computer science coursework, with possible applications in future cybersecurity and networking classes.The initiative is also too new to demonstrate measurable academic benefits, though Headley said he hopes to have more evidence of its impact after approximately a year.Looking ahead, Spector said the partners hope their preparatory curriculum could eventually serve as a statewide model if the pilot proves successful.“Right now, nothing has yet pushed the needle because this is so new. Give me about a year to really get some empirical data,” Headley said. “This is something that is real, it is tangible, and it’s something that can translate into something more than just a game.”
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