Sacramento, Calif. – St. Francis Catholic High School is proud to announce eight students have qualified to compete in the CyberStart National Cyber Scholarship Competition April 5-7, 2021:  Caroline Sorrells ’22, Maile Hodges ’23, Mia Hernandez-Peng ’24, Emily Sherrod ’22, Kate Cockerton ’23, Riley Glenn ’21, Isabella Angelina Gutierrez ’24, and Nayeli Kojima ’24. Students will be competing for $2 million in college scholarships, cybersecurity training, and recognition badges that can be used on college and job applications.

CyberStart America is an immersive online learning resource for students, acting as an onramp to a career in one of the world’s fastest-growing industries. St. Francis’ C-STEM program is led by instructors Jeffrey Chamberlain and Lisa Coffman. Providing female students with access to computer science courses is necessary to ensuring gender parity in the industry’s high-paying jobs and to drive innovation, creativity, and representation.

This will be senior Riley Glenn’s second year competing: “My incentive to go to the competition was wanting to learn and grow my knowledge as best I can. I thought it would be really interesting to learn about cybersecurity because it is such a big area. The competition was super fun how it was set up with all the interactive games. It is a different aspect of computer science that I wanted to continue this year.”

In January 2021, St. Francis Catholic High School received the College Board AP® Computer Science Female Diversity Award for achieving high female representation in AP Computer Science A and AP Computer Science Principles. This is the third year in a row St. Francis has earned the award. Schools honored with the AP Computer Science Female Diversity Award have expanded girls’ access in AP Computer Science courses.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Tina Tedesco
(916) 737-5055
ttedesco@stfrancishs.org