This is the seventh segment in a multi-part series taking a deeper dive into the 2024-25 district strategic priorities. The Strategic Plan identifies Wellness as one of the four core components of a student's experience in MSAD #51, with safety a critical area of focus. This year's district priorities center on physical safety with respect to emergency planning and cybersecurity.
Though we have always invested in safeguarding our technology systems and devices, cybersecurity has become an area of intense focus over the last year or so, given the rise in cyber attacks in school districts both here in Maine and across the nation. Our strategic priority is to develop a best-practice cyber plan that ensures we are using the most current tools available to secure our infrastructure in order to protect student and staff privacy. The first layer of protection comes from risk management and mitigation protocols, including identifying vulnerabilities and taking corrective action to minimize them. Fortunately, over the past five years, the district has invested in a new network (paid out of pandemic-era federal funds), cybersecurity controls, and other network integrity processes and redundancies. Though we cannot prevent all attacks, having a variety of detection, response, and prevention strategies in place will help keep attempts at bay. Over the last year, we have introduced our school community to standard practices aimed at preventive maintenance, such as multi-factor authentication, password management, and third-party data sharing restrictions.
In addition to having contingency plans in place to prevent cybersecurity attacks from infiltrating our systems, the other layer of prevention is education. Our district has a K-8 Digital Citizenship Scope & Sequence based on resources provided by Common Sense Media. One example of this curriculum is from a grade 7 lesson called "Don't Feed the Phish" with the following objectives:
- Compare and contrast identity theft with other kinds of theft.
- Describe different ways that identity theft can occur online.
- Use message clues to identify examples of phishing.
Helping students understand that they play an important role in responsible digital citizenship is key. At the end of the day, cybersecurity is a fact of life in the digital age. It is part of living in the 21st Century and preparing our students for their future in a globally interconnected world.