(New York, NY – August 31, 2022) – NAF, a national non-profit organization that brings education, business, and community leaders together to transform the high school experience, is excited to announce our new partnership with CYBER.ORG, a cybersecurity workforce development organization funded by Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s (CISA) Cybersecurity Education and Training Assistance Program (CETAP) grant. CYBER.ORG targets K-12 students with cyber career awareness and curricular resources, with a focus on training educators to integrate cybersecurity curriculum into the classroom.
With the field of cybersecurity constantly evolving and cybersecurity curricula frequently requiring updating, this partnership aims to help solve this problem. NAF will provide access to CYBER.ORG’s high-quality curricula and resources for IT and STEM-related academies. NAF educators and students can access CYBER.ORG’s learning content through the organization’s curricula site or through this link on NAF’s website. All of CYBER.ORG’s courses are also approved in NAFTrack.
Cybersecurity as a high school curricular offering was relatively unknown five years ago. However, as the threats to data and information systems across the globe have become a common occurrence, there is a growing drive from both the public and private sectors to ramp up courses in the 9-12 space – with cybersecurity being an area that is essential in every industry.
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, employment of information security analysts is projected to grow at a rapid rate of 33% from 2020 to 2030, with about 16,300 openings for information security analysts expected each year. The work environments tend to be computer companies, consulting firms, or business and financial companies, with a median annual wage of around $102,600, as of May 2021.
By partnering, NAF and CYBER.ORG will accomplish the following:
- Curate semester and/or annual cybersecurity courses, acting as an approved program of study and aligned to national standards
- Provide access to short-term learning modules that can be embedded into student projects
- Establish professional learning opportunities for educators
- Create student-authentic learning projects – e.g., Passport Expeditions, national student competitions/challenges
NAF CEO, Lisa Dughi, said “Partnering with CYBER.ORG is a very strategic move for both organizations. Cybersecurity is essential to the wellbeing of every industry today and we need to ensure there is a workforce to support that. This partnership will enable our educators and students to keep up with the current trends and get ahead of future needs to meet the talent demands in this space.”
“As our nation continues to face a growing shortfall of cybersecurity professionals, expanding access to cybersecurity education among high school students is critical to addressing this workforce challenge,” said Laurie Salvail, Director of CYBER.ORG. “By partnering with NAF, we have an extraordinary opportunity to expand cybersecurity literacy in high school classrooms across the country. We look forward to our continued collaboration with NAF as we equip educators with the tools to teach the next generation about cybersecurity.”
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About CYBER.ORG
CYBER.ORG, formerly the National Integrated Cyber Education Research Center (NICERC), is a cybersecurity workforce development organization that targets K-12 students with cyber career awareness, curricular resources, and teacher professional development. The United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) supports CYBER.ORG through a grant from the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) to develop and distribute cybersecurity education content to educators across the country at no cost. Currently, more than 25,000 teachers across all 50 states and four U.S. territories are enrolled in the CYBER.ORG content platform. For more information, please visit http://www.cyber.org.
About NAF
NAF is a national non-profit organization that transforms the high school experience to prepare students for college, career, and future success. NAF’s educational design is uniquely comprehensive in its approach to skills development, enabling students of all backgrounds to participate in a meaningful education and gives businesses the opportunity to shape America’s future workforce by transforming the learning environment to integrate STEM infused, career-relevant curricula and work-based learning experiences, including internships.
NAF has grown from one NAF Academy of Finance in New York City to hundreds of academies across the country focusing on growing industries including finance, hospitality & tourism, information technology, engineering, and health sciences; and support programs of study that are aligned with the National Career Clusters Framework.
During the 2021-22 school year, over 120,000 students attended 618 NAF academies across 35 states, plus DC, Puerto Rico, and the US Virgin Islands. In 2021, NAF academies reported 99% of seniors graduated with 87% of graduates planning to go to college. For more information, please visit: https://naf.org/.
Contacts:
RH Strategic for CYBER.ORG, cyber.org@rhstrategic.com
Courtney Savoia for NAF: csavoia@naf.org