Following the success of its 2024 Cybersecurity Bootcamp Program, the San Diego County Office of Education (SDCOE) is expanding this year’s spring break program to open pathways to thriving cybersecurity careers for even more of its underserved students.
The program — supported by InfraGard San Diego (an initiative of the Federal Bureau of Investigation), the US Cyber Initiative and donations from local businesses, cybersecurity insurance companies, Lenovo, HP, Juniper Networks and more — brings professors, college instructor interns and speakers from the FBI, Department of Homeland Security and the technology sector to provide deep dives into various aspects of cybersecurity.
Participants learn cybersecurity skills through hands-on experiences, and the local college students who provide mentorship ensure high school students have a connection to someone close in age whom they can reach out to for guidance as they consider next steps after graduation.
Students who complete the program receive $250, but according to Danny Pasawongse, SDCOE’s executive director of technology infrastructure and operations, the most important thing students get is that “they can see themselves in that career.”
Last year, the Cybersecurity Bootcamp was provided to 22 high school students from the Monarch School, a comprehensive K-12 school in San Diego County that provides services for unhoused students and their families. A little over half of those students were girls, a group that is underrepresented in technology sectors.
Students achieved significant knowledge increases in areas including password and network security, data privacy and artificial intelligence (AI), providing them a crucial foundation to one of the 755,000 vacancies in cybersecurity jobs nationwide, according to Pasawongse.
From March 29 to April 4, this year’s bootcamp will be held at two locations: the Monarch School and SDCOE’s Juvenile Court & Community School 37ECB campus, providing access for a total of 60 students.
The program is the first of its kind in California, and one of just a few nationwide. The decision to first offer the bootcamp to the students most in need was intentional, Pasawongse explained.
“Our North Star is to reduce the poverty in San Diego County. We have half a million kids and around 57 percent of them are below the poverty line, so there’s a need for this,” he said. “My office faces one of the most prestigious private schools called Francis Parker. Their tuition is up to $44,000 a year. Those kids get this kind of camp. And so, when we were game planning this, we’re like, ‘Why can’t our kids who are underprivileged get this kind of opportunity?’”
First-year participants immersed themselves in the material and despite any challenges they faced, made sure to show up every day, Pasawongse said. Students were quick to volunteer to do tasks related to penetration testing, vulnerability scanning, ethical hacking — skills that major companies across sectors are looking for.
“They did a capstone project to present to the sponsors who were there at the graduation,” he continued. “The parents who were outside — some of them were living in their cars right outside this Monarch School — came in and there was a lot of tears because this is a life-changing impact moment.”
The program provides students with a connection to their learning, ensuring it is tied to real-world applications, as well as their school and community.
“You see that spark lit where they connect it and they go, ‘Oh, I can learn this stuff. Not only that, I could change my situation at home. I have a bright, incredible future, and these people care,’” Pasawongse said. “It opens the door for them to discuss college. They have these mentor-mentee relationships and they’re asking, ‘What’s next?’”
In addition to connecting students with sponsors of the bootcamp for internship opportunities, SDCOE is working with Lamp of Learning, an organization that provides resources and scholarships for college and career development.
“We also started another pilot, which is an internship at San Diego County Office of Education in my department where students get exposed to the network infrastructure, cybersecurity, the cloud and servers that power all of the county,” Pasawongse said. “So, there’s more opportunities after graduation, and there’s tremendous interest in that. These are the kids that are going to protect our future, our social security, our retirement, our country, our systems, airplanes, everything else.”
With 42 school districts and 129 charter schools, the opportunity and momentum to expand the program throughout SDCOE is there, he added.
