In a computer lab filled with images of locks on the walls and quotes about security, students are learning how websites get hacked—and how they can prevent cyber breaches.
In the Lakota local school district here, students can take cybersecurity classes starting their sophomore year. For many, this is the start of their career—not only do they learn the technical aspects of the field, but they have the opportunity to network with industry professionals, intern, and obtain certifications all before turning 18.
“Our [program] is very specifically designed in collaboration with our industry to give kids not only really high-quality instruction but a scaffolded approach of real-world experiences,” said Andrew Wheatley, director of career exploration and strategic partnerships for the district.
Across the country, student enrollment in career and technical education increased by 10% between the 2022-23 and 2023-24 school years, from 7.8 million to 8.6 million students. Both K-12 and postsecondary educators identified pathways related to digital technology, artificial intelligence, information technology, and cybersecurity as the course offerings most expected to increase in the next five years, according to a 2025 EdWeek Research Center survey.
The nearly 17,000-student Lakota district, located about 20 miles from Cincinnati, has also seen a growing interest in cybersecurity from students. The district’s Cyber Academy is a three-year pathway that launched seven years ago with 60 students and has since grown to about 200 students enrolled each year.
On a recent October morning, teenagers were challenged to find a vulnerability in a website. Some students worked together and others individually. But all students were completely immersed in the activity using both laptops and monitors—one device for them to work, and the other showing a guide that Jennifer Circello, a cybersecurity instructor in the district, created to help students complete the challenge.
Circello was bouncing from one side of the classroom to the other, answering questions students had. One student even stayed after class to ask follow-up questions.
This is a typical exercise in a higher-level cybersecurity course at Lakota’s Cyber Academy.
Students start with Cyber 1 during sophomore year, where they get an overview of what cybersecurity is and learn how to use Linux, a software used to test and investigate computer systems and networks. In their junior year, they take Cyber 2, learning about website hacking and how to prevent it.
In their senior year, students take Cyber 3, which is a “choose your own adventure” course, said Circello. Students can take college classes that give them credit hours, complete requirements for professional certifications, or conduct a year-long project like setting up their own servers at home. Circello said these projects allow students to explore different interests since the cybersecurity and computer science fields are broad. Students can also discuss these projects during internship interviews, she said.
Caleb Kingan, 18, is a freshman at the University of Cincinnati and a 2025 graduate of the Cyber Academy. Caleb says he’s been able to dive into all the opportunities Lakota offered.
“You get out of this program what you put in,” said Caleb. It’s hard work, he added, but the program “gives you the opportunity and the resources to do competitions, to do certifications, and really anything you want, and prepare you for college or your career.”
Starting in Cyber 2, once a month, students meet with industry professionals to discuss the field, how they got their jobs, where they went to school, and what certifications they have.
“In any good cyber program, 50% of the learning should be coming from outside the classroom, and I feel like we’ve done that,” said Wheatley.
Additionally, the district offers opportunities for work-based learning. Students can intern during the summer at Fifth Third Bank, the Kroger supermarket chain, or Great American Insurance.
After graduation, students either enter the workforce or go on to major in a cybersecurity-related field in college, Circello said. So far, about 350 students have done the latter.
“While students are in the [cyber] program, they see everybody around them doing the same things, and they don’t realize how exceptional they are,” Circello said. “My students tell me that they are ahead of their peers by quite a lot when they get to college.”
The Cyber Academy at Lakota isn’t your traditional CTE program
Lakota’s cyber program started when the superintendent was chatting with a cybersecurity worker about how the field could benefit from more young talent, Circello recalls.
The traditional next step could have been applying for a federal grant, provided through the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act, but instead the school district worked directly with industry partners to build and fund its cyber program.
Three district employees and about 10 industry people met for lunch to discuss the skills and qualities high school students need to get an internship or a job in the field. That conversation laid the groundwork for what the program would look like, and then the district tapped into its educator pool to find teachers to lead it.
“We were able to build a more agile program” outside of the federal grant, Wheatley said. “That especially includes teachers.”
Typically, career and technical education programs have an industry veteran become certified to teach. What Lakota did instead was invest in their existing teachers’ professional development on cybersecurity.
The district now has two cybersecurity teachers. The Cyber 1 teacher just needs a summer’s worth of training, but an instructor for Cyber 2 and 3 is required to complete about two years of additional training. (Circello currently teaches both advanced classes.)
The teachers also go to two conferences a year, in addition to the ongoing training they receive from local organizations like colleges or nonprofits.
“I would argue that all you really need is a teacher who is a good teacher, is passionate about kids, is willing to learn—and then you give them really good professional development, and they’ll be fine,” said Wheatley.
One example is Circello, who originally started as a high school math teacher in the district and, in the last four years, has learned all of the cybersecurity material.
“It feels like drinking from a fire hose at times,” she said. “But it’s a problem with [CTE] education—if you find somebody who is completely qualified to teach cybersecurity, it is most likely that they are going to be in the field doing cybersecurity where they can earn more money.”
Students say they feel ready for a career in cybersecurity
In October, industry professionals and graduates of the cyber program were visiting Cyber 2 for mentorship day. Circello assigned one to two mentors to sit at each table with two to three students.
Throughout the class, they chatted about a range of topics related to career and college readiness. One table featured two college students, who shared their experiences of moving away from home and what college life was like.
One student who says she’s benefited from these mentorship sessions is Abby Kipp, 17 and a senior at Lakota West High School. Abby said she’s honed her soft skills, like networking and interviewing, through the program, which has made her feel prepared for the workforce.
Abby first was exposed to the cybersecurity field when she took a coding class in 8th grade. The experience then made her eager to enter the Cyber Academy in her sophomore year.
“It’s very easy to come into the field with no knowledge and/or little-to-no knowledge and work your way up to higher-level things,” she said.
Now, as a senior, she puts her knowledge and experience to the test as president of the Women in Cybersecurity Club, a student organization dedicated to creating a community for girls in the male-dominated field, and co-president of the Hacking Club, where students can learn more about cybersecurity-related topics and opportunities.
“It’s been cool this year to shift from the person who [used to be] sitting here learning from tutorials to now giving [them],” said Abby.
New challenges as the cybersecurity field evolves
Although the cybersecurity field is rapidly evolving, Lakota’s program is butting up against district policies and limitations. For example, a lot of websites where hacking appears are automatically blocked by the district’s IT systems, Circello said. She will typically ask the district to unblock websites for students to use during class assignments.
Plus, the district currently blocks AI tools for students—which is a real challenge in cybersecurity classes, where students need to learn how to navigate AI to keep up with the field, she said.
“In cybersecurity, AI is going to replace some jobs, but it’ll never replace all of them because it is only good at recognizing patterns, and the bad guys are finding new ways to attack our systems,” Circello said. “We are always going to need a human to notice things that are different or find new patterns.”
As hackers become more sophisticated, there is a growing need for workers equipped to protect organizations’ digital ecosystems, said Mark Threeton, a professor of workforce education and development at Pennsylvania State University and the executive director of the university’s Professional Personnel Development Center.
“It’s going to be really important that we have a workforce that is not just reactive to the problems that go with the new technology, but proactive about it,” said Threeton.
Keeping teachers up-to-date in the field is expensive
Funding for continuous staff training is also a challenge.
Circello received grants from the National Cybersecurity Teaching Academy and Bowling Green State University to take graduate courses that qualified her to teach advanced cybersecurity. The Cyber 1 teacher still needs to take more graduate-level courses to teach Cyber 2 or 3, but the grants previously tapped into are no longer an option, Circello said.
“Now all those [organizations] have lost a lot of their funding,” she said. “I looked up what those 18 credit hours would’ve [cost]—it’s like $30,000, and that is not accessible for teachers.”
Threeton suggests the district pursue the official designation of a CTE program to unlock state and federal dollars.
“There is some red tape around that, but you can still keep industry engaged; you can still have them teaching and preparing” students for the workforce, he said.
For example, an approved program would have certain hour requirements, including for student study, and the curriculum would be grounded in specific standards that match and align with industry ones, Threeton added.
But Wheatley, Lakota’s director of career exploration and strategic planning, said the official CTE designation is not the right fit for the district. Instead of focusing on “rigid alignment to national standards,” he said, the district wants to keep its focus on industry partnerships to prepare students to perform “in the real world.”
“We are more concerned with our students’ ability to speak with, collaborate, problem-solve, and communicate with industry [professionals],” he said.
Recently, senior Abby—through the program’s networking opportunities and career-prep assistance—became a co-chair for the K-12 Cybersecurity Education Community of Interest, which brings together teachers, school administrators, local and state education agencies, and other organizations to promote cybersecurity careers to interested students.
After graduating high school, Abby aims to double-major in computer science and mathematics with the goal of eventually working in cybersecurity and cryptography.
“The main reason I want to do that is because of the experience that I’ve had in the Cyber Academy,” she said.
