Digital Fluency and Cybersecurity
Grades 7 - 12
A complete, ready to teach course for every student. Built to New York State standards. Runs in the Google Workspace your district already has. No platform to buy, no teacher to hire, no curriculum to write.
WHAT YOUR DISTRICT GAINS
Standards you are already accountable for:
Aligned to the New York State Computer Science and Digital Fluency Learning Standards at the 7-8 and 9-12 bands, and to the ISTE Standards for Students. Every week carries its cited codes, so your alignment documentation is written before you begin.
No curriculum development cost:
No summer writing stipends
No committee
No pilot year spent building
Staff it with a teacher you already have:
No cybersecurity background and no prior technical experience required to teach it.
Reaches every student:
A general education course, not a CTE elective for twenty students.
Nothing to procure:
No new platform
No student accounts
No rostering
No IT lift
Kept current:
Annual updates included. The threats students face changes every year, and the materials change with them.
THE GAP MOST DISTRICTS STILL HAVE
Full implementation of the New York State Computer Science and Digital Fluency Learning Standards began in September 2024. Students must achieve them by the end of each grade band.
Most districts can point to a coding class. Very few can point to a course that teaches the cybersecurity and digital literacy standards to every student in grades 7 through 12.
AVARA was built for that gap.
BUILT FOR THE PORTRAIT OF A GRADUATE
The Board of Regents adopted the New York State Portrait of a Graduate in July 2025 and has asked districts to begin the work ahead of statewide alignment. This course is a place where five of those attributes are taught, practiced and assessed rather than described.
Students query and interpret data to reach supported conclusions, the work of a student who is Academically Prepared. They weigh evidence and question what they are shown as Critical Thinkers. They build, test and revise working artifacts as Creative Innovators, solving problems that have more than one defensible answer. They consider what their choices cost other people as Global Citizens in local, global and digital communities. And they reflect on their own decisions and set protective habits they carry out of the classroom, Reflective and Future Focused.
ONE COURSE
GRADES 7 THROUGH 12
Scaffolding is written into the activities themselves, so a seventh grader and a twelfth grader work from the same materials and each is met where they are. How far a student moves depends on prior knowledge, current skill and effort, not on which grade is printed on the cover.
Content is written in everyday language rather than technical language, every vocabulary term is pre-defined, and images and video carry ideas that text alone would not. Instruction is guided within the materials, so students can move forward without a teacher standing over them.
Students with disabilities access the activities for those same reasons. Some will need one to one support to navigate the work, and the capstones will challenge them. The format, layout and instructions were built with those students in mind from the first page.
WHAT STUDENTS WALK AWAY ABLE TO DO
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Recognize a threat before acting on it
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Know what to do first when an account is compromised, or may be
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Explain foundational cybersecurity concepts in plain language
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Read, filter and question information to reach a conclusion they can defend
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Make responsible decisions in digital spaces and explain why
PROGRAM OVERVIEW
96 daily lessons 72 instructional hours at a 45-minute period 12 weeks of applied investigations
NYSED counts a full unit of credit as 108 hours of instruction. This program delivers well beyond a half unit. Credit determination and course coding rest with the district.
Place it as a technology elective, a computer science elective, or a precursor to a CTE pathway.
Daily or alternating day. Synchronous or asynchronous.
HOW STUDENTS ARE ASSESSED
Every lesson produces a written artifact in the student Field Guide. Every week closes with an applied case file in which students reach a conclusion and present the evidence behind it.
Day 8 of every week is a dedicated review and assessment day.
Teachers receive complete answer keys for every lesson, every capstone and every weekly assessment. There is nothing to build in order to grade this course.
Students Learn to Identify Warning Signs and Respond Safely
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WHAT IS INCLUDED?
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Interactive student activities for every lesson
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A student Field Guide for every day
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Complete teacher keys
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Curriculum guide, pacing map and standards documentation
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Weekly capstones and assessments
RUNS IN YOUR GOOGLE WORKSPACE
Students work in the environment they sign into every day.
AVARA collects no student data. There is no AVARA student platform, no student accounts, and no student information transmitted to us at any point. Districts are welcome to have their Data Protection Officer review the delivery model against Education Law 2-d.
LICENSING
A one-time program fee and an annual license. Every district receives all updates for as long as the license is active. Materials are licensed to the purchasing district and may not be resold or redistributed.
WHO BUILT IT
AVARA Digital Fluency and Cybersecurity was written by Rene Ayers, a twenty-year New York State educator in special education and science, a cybersecurity analyst, and AVARA's Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer. She holds a master's degree in Curriculum Assessment and Design and currently pursuing a second master's degree in Cybersecurity and Information Assurance.
Before AVARA, she wrote and delivered a cyber hygiene and awareness curriculum for a New York boarding school under another company, running eight weeks on an alternating day schedule. What she learned there led her to start over rather than expand it. This program is longer, delivered through a platform schools already own instead of a proprietary one, collects no student data, and requires no teacher training.
Content accuracy comes from the security side of that background. The reason a seventh grader can follow it comes from twenty years of taking complex ideas apart and rebuilding them so they land.
New York State K-12 Computer Science and Digital Fluency Standards
Copyright 2020, New York State Education Department, used with permission