Program Details

June 8, 2010 Largo, MD.---The CyberWatch Center announced today at the 2010 CISSE Conference that it has partnered with the Baltimore County and Howard County School Systems in Maryland to launch Phase II of its K-12 SECURE IT Program to help fill the Cybersecurity workforce pipeline. Educators and security experts alike have identified the growing gap in cyber security workers as a major weakness for the nation.  SECURE IT is a unique effort that will establish the viability of a comprehensive program covering the entire K-12 education system by pioneering a response for the nation in the state of Maryland.

Additionally, CyberWatch will pilot the nation’s first high school Information Assurance (IA) Career track in partnership with Baltimore County and the Maryland State Department of Education.

The K-12 CyberWatch Program is the natural outgrowth of 10 years of work within the STEM community, building collaborative programs between business and education, and creating and piloting a robust curriculum for schools.  During Phase I of a National Science Foundation grant, CyberWatch’s K-12 division under the direction of Dr. Davina Pruitt-Mentle piloted courses targeted to elementary, middle, and high schools, and developed summer programs to immerse students in the IA career field.  In this second phase, the various levels will be united, and students will be tracked longitudinally, particularly to identify program success in maintaining interest in STEM disciplines in general, and Cybersecurity fields specifically.

The program is unique in several ways. “First, it includes multiple stakeholders. Students, parents, educators, industry speakers, and faculty, staff and students from our higher education community are all involved. We’ve also been doing it for some time now and have worked out what kids enjoy and what teachers can do in the informal setting that ties to their content classes and vice versa,” said Dr. Pruitt-Mentle. “Content topics were co- developed with CyberWatch IA faculty. It also connects the career awareness with the general cybersecurity awareness effort. Even if some kids choose not to go into the IA field, if they gain a stronger understanding about how to behave ethically, safely and securely online, we still feel we have made a difference.”

The SECURE IT effort will be presenting an in-depth status report at the 9^th Annual C3 Conference in October 2010.  For more information, see http://www.edtechpolicy.org/C32010/

For more information on the SECURE IT program or the K12 Division of CyberWatch, contact Dr. Davina Pruitt-Mentle at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it To learn more about CyberWatch and to receive multi-media files and reports regarding its accomplishments, visit www.cyberwatchcenter.org or contact Dr. Costis Toregas, CyberWatch Marketing Director at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .