Maryland school offers first homeland security program.

High school students at Harford County Public Schools in Bel Air, Md., will get the nation's first taste in disaster preparedness, high-level computer science and law enforcement over the next few years.

"If you think about the times we live in, they demand a far greater awareness of the whole issue of safety and security when we travel and protect our country," says David Volrath, executive director for the district's secondary education. "Many of these jobs never existed previously. It's not often that you get an opportunity to get a brand new job market that looks like it could be large.... And there are not too many states that are not affected by security concerns at airports, water ways or borders."

Named Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness Program, it will include such classes as Third World foreign languages including Arabic, criminal justice, and biological science as opposed to just random electives, and the core classes that will complement the program.

Roughly 50 ninth graders at Joppatowne High School interested in the program will start by taking such classes as geospatial technologies and computer viral technologies.

The program itself will then start next fall, in 2007, for 10th graders, and homeland security sciences will emerge in 2008 for accelerated students across the county. The classes will give them a head start when they get to college for pursuing careers.

The program came about in part when the district partnered several years ago with law enforcement and emergency medical services-type programs to develop student interest in such careers, Volrath explains. And given the country's BRAC program, or Base Realignment and Closure, where military communities undergo shifts, thousands of research jobs were moved to nearby Aberdeen Proving Ground. The community will also have an Anti-Terrorist Training School. All of this means a huge job market related to homeland security, which students can flock to when they finish college.

The district partnered with homeland security private industries sector and the military sector to create the educational program. Grants came from the Maryland Emergency Medical Agency and through FEMA to train teachers, send them to seminars and develop curriculum.

www.hcps.org