Require Minnesota High Schools to provide cybersecurity and digital safety education.

 

The purpose of this bill is to teach Minnesota high school students basic cybersecurity skills in order to better

protect themselves and their personal information.

 

Currently, Minnesota has no statewide requirement for cybersecurity education in high schools. Everyday, students use

school laptops and devices but have minimal knowledge on how to actually protect themselves online. By teaching students

these necessary skills for staying safe online it will significantly reduce possibilities of scams, identity theft, and

hacking. A recent study in 2025 found that about 80% of students aged 13-24 experienced some type of online threat, not

knowing how to respond. However, a study by the Prey Project stated that cybersecurity training among students reduced

the chances of online scams from 32% to 5%. Teens are increasingly being targeted by online scams and identity theft,

and it is needed to provide them with education on how to avoid this. Therefore, if Minnesota mandates high schools to

require students to complete a cybersecurity workshop, it will result in more teenagers that are safe online.

 

Cybersecurity: practice of protecting digital systems, networks, and data from dangerous attacks.

Workshop: lesson or series of lessons that is a minimum of 3 hours, and can be delivered in one session or spread across

multiple days.

Minnesota High Schools: any public high school school in the state of Minnesota.

Online Threat: act intended to damage, steal, or disrupt digital data.

Minnesota Department of Education (MDE): state agency responsible for the education institutions of Minnesota.

 

The total funding that will be needed for this bill is around $550,000, which will be split into $1,000-$2,000 grants

that all schools will be granted. This payment will vary based on the size and needs of each school. It will cover guest

speakers, training, or other materials schools may need. It will be obtained from the yearly budget of the Minnesota

Department of Education, which is estimated to be around $25.73 billion. Because the cost represents less than 0.022% of

the total education budget, it can be funded without any major tax increases or budget adjustments.

 

Each high school has to submit yearly verifications of the workshops, and it will be monitored by the Minnesota

Department of Education. If schools do not follow these guidelines, they will receive a warning from the government. If

the high school still fails to implement these workshops for the students, they may lose state funding for the following

years.

 

August 1st, 2026. Applicable for the 2026-2027 school year.