National Infrastructure Protection Plan

Education Facilities Subsector

Homeland Security Presidential Directive 7 identified 17 critical infrastructure and key resources
(CI/KR) sectors and designated Federal Government Sector-Specific Agencies (SSAs) for each of
the sectors. Each sector is responsible for developing and submitting a Sector-Specific Plan (SSP)
and sector-level performance feedback to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The SSAs
are also responsible for collaborating with security partners and encouraging the development
of appropriate information-sharing within the sector. DHS has recognized the Department of
Education’s (ED) Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools (OSDFS) as the lead for Education Facilities
(EF), a subsector of the Government Facilities Sector. In this role, EF coordinates with Federal and
non-Federal security partners to help address risk management for the subsector.

Subsector Overview All subsector CI/KR protective efforts are designed to

Education Facilities refers to prekindergarten (preK) and
all K-12 through post-secondary public, private, and
proprietary education facilities. As the SSA for EF, the
Department of Education’s Office of Safe and Drug-Free
Schools helps to address CI/KR protective efforts in the
subsector and works closely with the DHS Federal Protective
Service, the overall lead for the Government Facilities Sector.
EF assets and systems vary dramatically—from preK to
colleges and universities, from smaller schools housing less
than a hundred students to large schools housing several
thousand students. EF also includes campus grounds and
dormitories, increasing the number of facilities and the level
of complexity and challenge to risk mitigation.
support the EF subsector’s overall vision: “That all schools
and universities are ready to prevent-mitigate, prepare for,
respond to, and recover from all hazards, natural or man-
made, by having a comprehensive, all-hazards plan based on
the four phases or key principles of emergency management
to enhance school safety, to minimize disruption, and to
ensure continuity of the learning environment.”
Subsector Partnerships
OSDFS builds on existing school and university emergency
management efforts and continues to work with DHS and
a host of partners at the Federal, State, local, Territorial,
and tribal level to provide tools and information regarding
emergency management to the education community. OSDFS
is directly involved in emergency management issues for
schools through its Readiness and Emergency Management for
Schools (REMS) discretionary grant program (formerly known
as the Emergency Response and Crisis Management, ERCM,
program). In addition, ED works closely with the Department
of Health and Human Services’ Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention (CDC) and other Federal, State, and local
governments and Territories, to address pandemic influenza
planning efforts for preK through universities, including
collaboration on pandemic checklists, guidelines, and tools for
parents, educators and communities.
Comprehensive, all-hazards emergency management plans can
help mitigate risk to EF’s human (students and staff/faculty),
and physical (the facilities and associated structures) assets. Due
to the uniqueness of the subsector, EF utilizes a mix of public
and private school and university associations and organizations,
and school and university emergency management and security
specialists, to achieve representative stakeholder outreach.
A comprehensive approach to EF CI/KR protection includes
protective efforts for a variety of cross-sector assets (for
example, stadiums and arenas and school transportation, such
as school buses). This CI/KR protection approach requires
coordination across multiple sectors responsible for these
efforts. EF is working with these sectors so that the various areas
impacting the subsector are addressed.
CI/KR Protection and Challenges
For the EF subsector, CI/KR protection refers to comprehensive
all-hazards emergency management plans that are based on
the four phases or key principles of emergency management
(prevention-mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery).
Comprehensive plans are practiced and updated regularly,
coordinated with appropriate State and local partners, and
developed in close collaboration with first responders and the
community. They include written plans for an infectious disease
outbreak, and incorporate measures to address special needs
students and staff. While most schools and school districts
may have emergency management plans, local educational
agencies often may not have the capacity necessary to develop
comprehensive all-hazards emergency management plans
on their own. When these plans do exist, there is variability
in whether or not the plans are comprehensive, practiced
regularly, or written in collaboration with the local community.
There are multiple challenges related to CI/KR protection for
education facilities. The subsector includes millions of students,
faculty, and staff that are housed in 130,755 U.S. public and
private K-12 and higher education facilities. Therefore, given
the disparity between a facility’s population, physical size,
location, and function, the improvement and refinement
of comprehensive plans require each facility to consider
its uniqueness while still adhering to the key principles of
emergency management. Further, a comprehensive, all-hazards
approach to emergency management works to ensure that
emergency management plans take into account any procedures
and processes already in place within the school or local
community that could be improved, and local assessment data
that could help schools prioritize risks.
EF recognizes that the local communities, individual States, or
private owners have ultimate responsibility for protection of the
assets in the EF subsector, but face challenges as well. Schools
are often overlooked when communities are designing their
emergency management plans and large metropolitan areas
are often served by multiple school districts, but few of those
districts have regional plans that coordinate activities among the
various school districts and jurisdictions of first responders.
ED’s Emergency Management Programs and Materials
ED’s emergency management programs, initiatives, and
materials are designed to help schools improve and refine
school emergency management plans. Such programs work to
mitigate risk to the subsector’s human and physical assets. ED’s
priority programs and support for the EF subsector include:
• A discretionary grant program (REMS) to help school
districts improve and refine emergency management plans;
• A grant program to help local educational agencies recover
from a violent or traumatic incident, Project School
Emergency Response to Violence (SERV);
• Training for both emergency management grantees and
non-grantees;
• A Technical Assistance Center to assist grantees and
non-grantees of any education level represented in the
enhancement of school emergency management plans
through provision of preparedness resources including
publications featuring topics such as the National
Incident Management System, lessons learned as a result
of actual incidents, National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration all-hazards weather radios, how to create
“go-kits”; and
• Pandemic preparedness resources through collaboration
with the CDC and other partners, providing support
through checklists, guidelines, and tools for education
facilities; preK-higher education, parents, and communities
in pandemic influenza preparedness.
For questions or more information, please contact
NIPP@dhs.gov or visit www.dhs.gov/nipp.
About School Safety Partners  
This document is presented by School Safety Partners as part of a free online course on school safety. School 
Safety Partners (www.SchoolSafetyPartners.org) is dedicated to creating long‐term funding partnerships to 
support school safety best practices. We are a facilitator of joint research projects, reaching out to the general 
public as well as stakeholders in the public, private, non‐profit, and academic sectors. Since our start in January, 
2008, our projects have addressed the legislative, training, compliance, funding, and public awareness sides of 
school safety. Here are some highlights: 

1. We created a reference library documenting all aspects of Colorado Senate Bill 08‐181, a first‐of‐its‐kind 
measure introduced by Senator Tom Wiens to modernize emergency planning in schools, so students, 
teachers, and first responders can act fast in an emergency. 

2. For the 10th anniversary of the Columbine High School tragedy, we produced the national media event, 
"Colorado Rising," focusing on the future of school safety in America, and our guests and speakers were 
covered by NBC‐TV, CNN, NPR, FOX, Oprah Radio, Channel One News, Associated Press, Reuters, the 
Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Los Angeles Times, German Public Radio, the Guardian, and dozens of 
other news sources.   

3. We assisted in the 2008 Symposium and the 2009 Symposium on the Prevention of School Violence at 
Johnson & Wales University, and in the tabletop exercises on interoperable communications conducted 
for these events by one of our partners, SchoolSAFE Communications (www.SchoolSAFEcom.org). 

4. We produced over 4 hours of video footage, with 2 video crews, covering a full‐scale active shooter and 
multi‐hazard school exercise that involved 18 agencies and over 1,200 persons, and tested interoperable 
communications in several school‐related settings. 

5. We co‐created the School Response Framework Fund in support of the National Incident Managment 
System (NIMS) and to help Colorado schools become NIMS‐compliant as quickly as possible. 

6. We also developed a virtual campus that schools can use as an online training site for their safety 
teams, and as an action center where schools can build strong relationships with community partners, 
or local responders. 

7. We have developed with ABC‐TV a nationwide community awareness campaign, giving recognition to 
educators as first responders, and calling for the creation of public‐private partnerships to make school 
safety sustainable in communities across America. 

8. We have also developed with the creators of the feature motion picture, "April Showers," the 
educational and school safety materials to accompany the film as it is released to the worldwide 
educational market.  

9. Other states have shown an interest in what we have done in Colorado about school crisis response, and 
for them we have designed webinars and information kits about improving school safety legislation and 
finding long‐term funding solutions. 

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