Local teacher has plans for cyber security classes for students

AUGUSTA, Ga. (WRDW/WAGT) - A local Army veteran has worked with some of the biggest and most important cyber security agencies in the U.S.

That includes the NSA, the Department of Defense, and the Army Cyber Security Command at Fort Gordon.

Now he wants to bring all that experience to students across our area. For students looking to get into IT and cyber security, this could be the gateway to success.

Daniel Jackson is a teacher at the Academy of Richmond County. It’s been his goal to get more students into our local workforce in the CSRA.

He sat down with us and shared his plan to do just that.

Jackson says that he’s been in touch with several school districts about improving the pipeline from schools to the real world. He also says Cisco Systems is ready to build a replica lab in schools to help train these students.

For Jackson, school wasn’t always his first passion while growing up in Augusta.

“I was a dropout here, and while in school, I can remember the feeling I had where I felt as if I didn’t know enough about the world to make certain decisions about my future,” he said.

So, he went into the Army, where he worked in information technology for 20 years.

“Started off with working off of radios and antennas, kind of grew to working on computers and service side with switches and routers,” he said.

Now, he’s looking to make a change in schools across the CSRA.

“I returned to the community to see it still happening where we don’t have enough resources in the education systems,” said Jackson.

He plans to improve career, technical, and agricultural education or CTAE opportunities for students. This would include the NSA, Army Cyber Command, Georgia Cyber Center, and other major corporate companies to build a pipeline in our local schools.

“I believe that having all those key players at the table trying to pump resources into education can help us solve a lot of the problems we’re seeing,” he said.

This program is aimed to help curb violence in our community, fill open positions in local industries, and lower the high school drop-out rate.

“All those people coming together we can use the CSRA as a template, an example for change,” said Jackson.

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