Aligning Cybersecurity Standards to Current K–12 Instruction
Under the mandate, North Dakota school districts have the option to require a one-credit course to high school students or develop an integration plan. The plan must show how schools are covering the cybersecurity standards at all grade levels, from elementary through high school.
“Whenever you add a required credit for a student, you take away an opportunity they might have to take an elective for something else,” says Jennifer Hess, library resources and instructional resources coordinator at Fargo Public Schools.
The district spent the 2023-2024 school year developing an integration plan. “We really wanted to keep options for students open as much as possible while still covering the required standards,” she says.
Grand Forks Public Schools also opted to develop an integration plan to meet the new standards. “The first step was looking at the required classes students were already taking, looking at the standards and seeing where intersections were naturally occurring,” says Eric Ripley, the district’s executive director of career and technical education and technology.
For example, the district connected the standard around complex algorithms to existing math instruction and the standard on citing sources to English and language arts classes. “There are natural connections,” Ripley says. “It’s helpful for our instructors to know we’re not creating something brand new.”
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Building on New and Existing Relationships to Implement Integration
Collaboration has helped IT and instructional leaders in these North Dakota districts build their integration plans.
Fargo Public Schools reached out to other districts in the state. “We have about six districts within our state that have 10,000 students or more, so we collaborate a lot with those districts,” says Liann Hanson, the district’s director of standards-based instruction.
“Bismarck Public Schools was working on an integration plan at the same time, so we did work closely with them because we are very similar in how our two districts function,” Hess adds.
Not only did districts collaborate with others throughout the state, they also brought in various stakeholders to ensure their plans were well-rounded.
