North Point High School’s Cyber Patriot team recently placed in a national competition designed to test students’ knowledge of cybersecurity vulnerabilities in virtual operating systems. The Air & Space Forces Association’s National Youth Cyber Education Program was developed to stoke an interest in the field of cybersecurity and STEM fields among students in kindergarten through 12th grade. North Point’s team took eighth place out of 206 teams competing in Gold Division of the CyberPatriot Competition, or CP-17. “Our team was successful in the competition due to their strong collaboration, effective communication and deep knowledge of the subject matter,” Naquai Roundtree, Ph.D., a CTE cybersecurity teacher and co-sponsor of the Cyber Patriot team, said. The team members meet after school and during the Flight, North Point’s activity period. “The team spent a considerable amount of time practicing, learning from one another and leveraging each team members strengths.” The North Point team is made up of students in the Cisco Networking and cybersecurity Career and Technical Education (CTE) programs. The association, a nonprofit organization that advocates for the Air and Space Forces, has been holding the CyberPatriot competition for middle and high school students since 2009. The first competition featured eight teams; more than 5,100 students took part in this year’s contest. It is the largest cybersecurity competition open to middle and high school students in the country with teams from around the world joining. During the competition, student teams are asked to identify and fix cybersecurity issues in operating systems. T