The Department of Homeland Security is seeking applications for its Cybersecurity Education and Training Assistance Program.
Donor Name: Department of Homeland Security
State: All States
County: All Counties
U.S. Territories: Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, American Samoa, and Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands
Type of Grant: Grant
Deadline: 07/25/2023
Size of the Grant: $3,400,000
Grant Duration: 60 months
Details:
The purpose of the CETAP is to support the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s (CISA) efforts in building and strengthening a national cybersecurity workforce pipeline capacity through enabling elementary and secondary cybersecurity education, including by providing foundational cybersecurity awareness and literacy, encouraging cybersecurity career exploration, and supporting the teaching of cybersecurity skills at the elementary and secondary education levels. To fund these cybersecurity and infrastructure security education and training programs and initiatives, Section 2220 authorizes CISA to award financial assistance in the form of cooperative agreements and grants to carry out the purposes of the CETAP and enhance CETAP to address the national shortfalls of cybersecurity professionals.
The objectives of the FY 2023 CETAP are to:
- Target K-12 educators, administrators, counselors, and caregivers and promote awareness of national cybersecurity education and workforce training and education opportunities.
- Create cyber training pathways for K-12 educators, potential educators, and students by providing an adaptable cybersecurity curricular model that targets K-12 students (with a priority toward K-8) to include hands-on, engaging cybersecurity-integrated curriculum, gamified activities, competitions, and ready-to-use tools.
- Develop partnerships and increase stakeholder engagement to maximize outreach efforts and the impact of cybersecurity education across the K-12 community
- Develop and implement a comprehensive regional engagement strategy to increase awareness of all CETAP tools and resources.
Program Priorities
The priorities of the FY 2023 CETAP are to:
- Increase cybersecurity awareness, knowledge, and skills among K-12 educators, administrators, counselors, and students.
- Develop adaptable cybersecurity curriculum and content for K-12 educators and students using innovative strategies, such as pathways to convergence education approach.
- Create and promote cybersecurity professional development for K-12 educators, administrators, guidance and career counselors and caregivers.
- Create and implement an effective user feedback mechanism (i.e., surveys) on all services.
- Create partnerships to collaborate and amplify the outreach and delivery of cybersecurity trainings, workshops, and events.
- Create a sustainability plan for continuation of training services, professional development offerings, educational materials, and curriculum.
Funding Information
- Estimated Total Program Funding: $6,800,000
- Award Ceiling: $3,400,000
Period of Performance
60 months
Allowable Activities
An applicant must design its approach from: a strategic level by describing the goals, timeline, key stakeholders, resource allocation, programmatic assessments, and milestones; and an operational level by describing how it will implement the proposed strategy, including detailed plans for outreach to increase awareness of cybersecurity in the workplace and classroom, creation of impactful content for educators, stakeholder engagement, and development of K-12 curriculum and professional development opportunities.
Applicants must propose a scope of work comprised of the following activities:
- Draft for CISA’s review and, upon approval, execute a Comprehensive Engagement and Retention Strategy (CERS) that enables CISA and its regional partners to increase awareness of all CETAP tools and resources and outlines, at a minimum, how the applicant intends to:
- Achieve all Program Objectives including a timeline and associated milestones as well as expected resource allocation and assessment approach to ensure programmatic success and compliance with the terms of the funding opportunity.
- Ensure all electronic content and services are accessible to persons with disabilities. Develop a new or leverage an existing system for reviewing and collecting data and monitor results to assess the 5-year Period of Performance including educator feedback and projected measurable increases in students pursuing cybersecurity careers.
- Create a new or leverage existing infrastructure to successfully sustain the program components and partnerships after the life of the cooperative agreement.
- Develop effective marketing and outreach efforts in collaboration with stakeholders to increase awareness of cybersecurity in the K-12 community which will include discussing the disparity of cybersecurity professionals in the workforce, outlining the benefits of a cyber-integrated curriculum to mitigate future employment gaps and highlighting cybersecurity career options and the associated educational paths.
- Create an engaging, effective, and inclusive cybersecurity curriculum where:
- Educators in all 50 States, Washington D.C., and the U.S. Territories have universal access to the most current, cyber-integrated K-12 curricula.
- Students in all 50 States, Washington D.C., and the U.S. Territories will be introduced to cyber-integrated K-12 curricula that will incorporate technology-based and simulation training.
- Students are introduced to cybersecurity professionals with careers that align to the National Initiative for Cybersecurity Education (NICE) Cybersecurity Workforce Framework and can discuss sample job roles and responsibilities.
- Students are educated on how they can pursue a cybersecurity career through academic and non-academic paths.
- A template, to include the recruitment and logistics details, is developed to enable the cyber-integrated curricula program elements to be adapted and taught elsewhere (adaptable cybersecurity curricular model).
- Create engaging, effective, and inclusive professional development opportunities (virtual-synchronous and asynchronous, in person or a combination), where:
- Educators are exposed to and familiarized with cybersecurity classroom content and career options that will provide knowledge and techniques to advance their teaching capabilities.
- Caregivers and students have access to high-quality cybersecurity content that increases awareness and provides hands-on, supplemental learning opportunities outside of the classroom.
Eligible Applicants
- Nonprofit organizations, other than institutions of higher education with an effective ruling letter from the U.S. Internal Revenue Service granting tax exemption under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986.
- Nonprofit organizations, other than institutions of higher education, without an effective ruling letter from the U.S. Internal Revenue Service granting tax exemption under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986.
Applicant Eligibility Criteria
- Cybersecurity Curriculum. An applicant must have experience and a satisfactory record of past performance in (K-12) cybersecurity education required to successfully manage and implement fundamental cybersecurity curriculum. An applicant must provide in its application a summary of the cybersecurity curriculum for both students and educators that it has previously provided, to include course offerings, degree requirements, pre and post assessments, labs, etc.
- Target Community. K-12 educators, administrators, guidance counselors, students, and their caregivers.,. An applicant must provide in its application a summary of their strategic approach on how they target and market services directly to different audiences/communities/stakeholders.
- Professional Development. An applicant must have experience in delivering K-12 cybersecurity related professional development. An applicant must provide in its application a summary of their strategic approach on how they execute K-12 cybersecurity professional development, what audiences the professional development services are created for, as well as how they capture feedback on their services/programs.
For more information, visit Grants.gov.
