Build Cyber Talent Pipelines: Lessons From Alabama

Alabama has 8,000 unfilled cybersecurity jobs. Nationwide, the gap is even louder: roughly 750,000 open roles. Those numbers aren’t just labor-market trivia—they’re the reason school systems, community colleges, and employers keep running into the same wall: we can’t hire what we haven’t trained.

Most places respond by posting the same job descriptions and hoping remote talent appears. East Alabama tried something more practical: build a regional cybersecurity pathway that starts in high school, connects to credentials, and ends with real work experience. It’s a clean example of what workforce development should look like in the “Education, Skills, and Workforce Development” series—career-connected learning that’s designed around local demand, not abstract standards.

The story starts small: a rural student, a new class, a teacher willing to learn alongside kids. It scales into something bigger: a multi-district alliance reaching 33,000+ students with shared curriculum, teacher support, and employer partnerships. That’s not a feel-good pilot. That’s a pipeline.

The real cybersecurity shortage is a pathway shortage

The key issue isn’t that students “aren’t interested in cyber.” It’s that many students never see a clear, low-friction route from curiosity to competence to a paycheck.

Cybersecurity is still treated like an advanced specialty—something you do after computer science, after four years of college, after you already have an IT job. That framing shuts out rural students, career changers, and anyone without family connections in tech.

East Alabama’s approach flips the order:

• Start earlier (high school)
• Teach the fundamentals (networking, hardware/software basics, cyber hygiene)
• Add authentic practice (labs, competitions, phishing analysis)
• Attach credentials (micro-credentials, Security+ prep)
• Connect to employers (internships, mentorship, exposure to different environments)

Here’s the stance I’ll take: If your region has cyber job openings but no structured pathway that begins before college, you’re choosing to keep the shortage.

Why this matters right now (December 2025)

The end of the year is when districts plan budgets and course offerings, and employers finalize next-year hiring forecasts. It’s also when families start weighing spring course registration and postsecondary options.

Cybersecurity pathways fit the moment because:

• AI adoption is raising the stakes for security and privacy across every sector.
• Employers increasingly hire based on skills evidence (projects, labs, internships, entry certifications), not just degrees.
• Rural communities are tired of “train people so they can leave.” Pathways can be designed to keep talent local.

What Alabama built: a regional alliance that behaves like one system

The East Alabama Regional Cybersecurity Alliance (EARCA) is the part other regions should copy—not the specific tools or one charismatic teacher.

Answer first: EARCA works because it reduces duplication and increases consistency.

Instead of seven districts reinventing cybersecurity education separately, they collaborate with postsecondary institutions and industry partners to share:

• Curriculum and pathway design (so students don’t hit dead ends)
• Teacher professional development (so instructors aren’t isolated)
• Employer partnerships (so internships don’t depend on who you know)
• Common language about skills (so a “network fundamentals” course means roughly the same thing across schools)

In workforce development terms, that’s the difference between a program and a system.

The rural advantage people underestimate

Rural districts are often described in terms of constraints: smaller staff, fewer electives, fewer local employers.

But regional collaboration creates a real advantage: scale without centralization. When districts pool resources, they can:

• justify specialized PD,
• coordinate internships across a wider geography,
• run regional events and competitions,
• align with a nearby college’s entry requirements.

That’s how you take a “we’re too small for cybersecurity” district and turn it into a contributor to a regional talent pipeline.

Teacher readiness is the bottleneck—and the solution is community

A cybersecurity pathway lives or dies on teacher confidence.

East Alabama’s model is refreshingly blunt: teachers don’t have to be the smartest person in the room. Brian Kelly, the instructor highlighted in the source story, describes the approach that actually works in modern tech education:

Learn with your students. Do the competitions. Figure it out together.

That’s not lowering the bar. That’s acknowledging reality. Tools and threats change constantly, so the durable skill is adaptive problem-solving.

A practical model for teacher upskilling

The most replicable element is the monthly community of practice—cyber educators meeting regularly to swap labs, troubleshoot, and align to workforce expectations.

If you’re building a cybersecurity education program, don’t treat PD as a one-time workshop. Set up a rhythm:

1. Monthly instructor meetups (60–90 minutes)
2. A shared repository of labs and lesson plans
3. “Show-and-tell” of what worked and what flopped
4. Light alignment to industry skills (not jargon-heavy standards)
5. A rotating guest from a local employer or college

This kind of professional learning community does two things at once:

• It improves instruction quality.
• It prevents teacher burnout by making the work feel shared.

Hands-on cybersecurity learning: what “authentic” actually looks like

A lot of programs claim they’re hands-on. Then you look at the syllabus and it’s mostly vocabulary.

Answer first: Authentic cyber learning requires students to practice both offense and defense in safe, guided ways.

In the Alabama example, students do work that mirrors real security thinking:

• Phishing analysis (spotting patterns, headers, intent)
• Defense strategy design (thinking in systems, not just tools)
• Group-based problem solving (how security teams actually operate)
• Competitions like CyberPatriot and SkillsUSA (timed scenarios, collaborative pressure)

One memorable classroom moment involved a “rubber ducky” USB device (a programmable tool that can automate actions on a computer). The point wasn’t the gadget—it was the ethics and intent.

That’s a core workforce-development lesson: cybersecurity education is as much about judgment as it is about technique.

What to teach first (a sequence that doesn’t overwhelm beginners)

If students enter with “no IT experience,” the pathway has to be structured so beginners can win early.

A simple sequence I’ve found works:

1. Digital hygiene and security mindset: passwords, MFA, updates, social engineering
2. Networking basics: IPs, DNS, HTTP/S, ports (enough to explain how the internet “moves”)
3. Systems basics: Windows/Linux navigation, files, permissions
4. Threats and controls: phishing, malware basics, least privilege, logging
5. Practice environments: small labs, then competitions, then internships
6. Credential prep: entry certs or micro-credentials aligned to what students already practiced

When the order is right, students don’t “wash out.” They build momentum.

Credentials + internships: the bridge between school and hiring

Workforce development fails when it produces learning without proof.

East Alabama’s pathway pairs learning with:

• micro-credentials via free, self-paced platforms,
• internships that expose students to cyber in different environments,
• and preparation for recognized entry certifications (like Security+).

This is how a student like Seth Walker can arrive at college already working on a credential as a freshman—and already understanding what cybersecurity looks like in real settings.

A hiring manager’s view: what “entry-level cyber talent” should show

If your goal is leads—students enrolling, employers partnering, funders supporting—speak in outcomes that map to hiring.

An entry-level candidate doesn’t need to be a penetration tester. They should be able to:

• explain a phishing attempt clearly,
• demonstrate basic networking literacy,
• follow a troubleshooting process,
• document what they did,
• communicate in a team.

Those are teachable in high school if the program is built for it.

A replication blueprint other regions can use in 90 days

Big pathways often die in planning. The fix is to start with a minimum viable pathway and expand.

Answer first: You can stand up the foundations of a regional cybersecurity pathway in one semester if you focus on alignment, not perfection.

Days 1–30: Form the alliance and define the target roles

• Identify 3–7 districts or schools willing to collaborate.
• Bring in one postsecondary partner and 3–5 employers.
• Define 3 target entry roles (examples: IT support, junior security analyst, SOC technician).
• Agree on 8–12 core skills students should demonstrate.

Days 31–60: Build the learning spine

• Choose a shared course sequence (even if it’s just two courses to start).
• Pick common lab types (phishing, basic networking, system hardening).
• Schedule monthly teacher meetups.
• Create a simple skills rubric that all participating schools can use.

Days 61–90: Prove it with practice and a work-based learning plan

• Run one regional competition or simulation day.
• Launch internships or job-shadowing (even if it’s only 10–20 placements).
• Collect student artifacts (writeups, screenshots, lab reflections).
• Recruit the next cohort of employers using those artifacts as evidence.

If you do only one thing: build the employer loop early. Programs feel “real” when students see where this can lead.

What leaders should stop doing (and what to do instead)

A blunt list, because these mistakes are common:

• Stop buying a curriculum and assuming you bought a pipeline.
  Do instead: invest in teacher community + employer partnerships.

• Stop treating cybersecurity as a senior-year elective.
  Do instead: create a pathway that begins with fundamentals in earlier grades.

• Stop measuring success only by course enrollment.
  Do instead: track credentials earned, internships completed, and demonstrated skills.

• Stop waiting for “expert teachers.”
  Do instead: hire strong educators and give them structured upskilling and peer support.

Where this fits in Education, Skills, and Workforce Development

This Alabama case study lands on a broader truth across vocational training, digital skills, and career readiness: regional collaboration beats isolated excellence.

When a pathway is designed around labor-market demand and supported by public-private partnerships, it becomes more than a class. It becomes local infrastructure—like roads, but for talent.

If you’re a district leader, community college partner, employer, or workforce agency looking to build (or sponsor) a cybersecurity talent pipeline, the next step is straightforward: map your region’s demand, convene partners, and start with a program that produces proof—skills, credentials, and work experience.

The forward-looking question for 2026 planning cycles is this: Will your region still be talking about the cybersecurity talent shortage next year, or will you be training your way out of it?