2019 -- S 0390

========

LC001730

========

     STATE OF RHODE ISLAND

IN GENERAL ASSEMBLY

JANUARY SESSION, A.D. 2019

____________

S E N A T E   R E S O L U T I O N

CONGRATULATING WESTERN HILLS MIDDLE SCHOOL OF CRANSTON FOR

FINISHING IN 1ST AND 2ND PLACE IN THE STATEWIDE CYBERPATRIOT NATIONAL

YOUTH CYBER DEFENSE CHALLENGE, AND IN THE TOP FIFTEEN PERCENT OF ALL

TEAMS COMPETING ACROSS THE NATION

     Introduced By: Senators Gallo, Ruggerio, Lombardi, Felag, and Satchell

     Date Introduced: February 26, 2019

     Referred To: Recommended for Immediate Consideration

     WHEREAS, CyberPatriot is a national youth cyber education program created in 2009 in

the United States by the Air Force Association (AFA) to help encourage and guide young

students toward careers in cybersecurity, engineering, mathematics and other science and

technology fields; and

     WHEREAS, According to Ms. Donna Wayles, Technology Educator at Western Hills

Middle School, starting last September students in grades six and seven expressed an interest in

studying issues related to cybersecurity; and

     WHEREAS, Eight of Ms. Wayles' students, sixth graders Aidan Ranaldi, Taha Alnahas,

Vignesh Peddi, and Daniel Nikitskaya, and seventh graders Henry Cheng, Jack Zukowski,

Hannah Couitt, and Jacquelyn Prata, formed a club, the Western Hills Middle School

Cybersecurity Team, and competed in the most recent CyberPatriot National Youth Cyber

Defense Competitions; and

     WHEREAS, In the State-Level competition the Western Hills Team earned first and

second-place honors competing against fifteen other Rhode Island schools. In the semifinal

round, 848 schools across the nation took part and the Western Hills finished in the top fifteen

percent of all teams competing including high schools and JROTC programs. The Western Hills

Team is ranked 49th out of 600 middle schools nationwide; and

     WHEREAS, Competing students learned how to operate Windows Server 2016,

Windows 8, Windows 10, and Linux and were graded on how accurately they recognized and

secured system vulnerabilities on a virtual network. Additionally, the Western Hills Team created

their own discord server which allowed them to share files with each other and to virtually

communicate with each other; and

     WHEREAS, According to Ms. Wayles, the Western Hills Team worked very hard and

put in many hours of lab work and additional time studying and preparing for these competitions.

As a result of their hard work, they have succeeded at both the statewide and national levels, and

have prepared themselves for successful careers in the future in the STEM fields (science,

technology, engineering and math); now, therefore be it

     RESOLVED, That this Senate of the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations

hereby heartily congratulates the Western Hills Middle School Cybersecurity Team for finishing

in 1st and 2nd in the CyberPatriot National Youth Cyber defense Challenge, and in the top fifteen

percent of all teams competing across the nation; and be it further

     RESOLVED, That the Secretary of State be and hereby is authorized and directed to

transmit duly certified copies of this resolution to Ms. Donna Wayles, Technology Educator at

Western Hills Middle School, and Aidan Ranaldi, Taha Alnahas, Vignesh Peddi, Daniel

Nikitskaya, Henry Cheng, Jack Zukowski, Hannah Couitt, and Jacquelyn Prata.

========

LC001730

========

LC001730 - Page 2 of 2