During October, thirty educators from across the country with a deep interest in expanding K-12 cybersecurity education met virtually to begin developing the framework for the Cybersecurity Learning Standards. Committee members were broken into teams for small group discussion and reconvened as a collective group to determine the best categories for the soon-to-be developed standards.

Beginning with ten proposed core concepts, the committee narrowed the final selection down to three – Ethics and Law, Network Security and Technology. Additionally, three Cross-Cutting Concepts will be addressed within each Core Concept, including Career Awareness, Global Awareness, and Diversity and Equity.

The standards committee members will ultimately decide the details of the core concepts and cross-cutting concepts throughout the standards development process. Committee members from each grade (from elementary, middle and high school) will identify standards for each of the three core concepts. For example, the kindergarten grade level standards will address all core concepts (Ethics and Law Standards, Network Security and Technology) which will also contain language that intersects with one or more of the cross-cutting concepts. This same structure will be applied for all grade levels.

The next stage of the process is creating the standards, which will take place in December. CYBER.ORG plans to release the final standards in August of 2021.

To follow CYBER.ORG’s K-12 Cybersecurity Learning Standards process, visit: https://cyber.org/standards. If you are interested in engaging with CYBER.ORG for opportunities, reach out to us at [email protected].