Students and families expect you to be ready. So does the law.
Colleges, universities, and K-12 schools are responsible for thousands of people every day, across campuses, residence halls, and buildings that were never designed for today’s threats.
We help education institutions build crisis management, emergency notification, business continuity, and campus security programs that protect students, faculty, and staff, meet the requirements that apply to them, and stay simple enough for your teams to use.
✅ Practitioner-led, not advisory
✅ Crisis management, continuity, and campus security in one program
✅ Tested in real exercises, not just on paper
What we hear from education leaders
We’ve worked with public, private, and for-profit colleges and universities, K-12 school systems, and charter schools. We hear the same things from the people who own safety, security, and continuity:
“I don’t have enough time and hands.”
“We have two different crisis teams. Nobody is sure who’s in charge.”
“Would the loss of our president or a senior leader actually constitute a crisis?”
“We have plans, but no one’s touched them in years.”
“It’s really as simple as having an incident leader worried about the things that need worrying about.”
“One of the biggest challenges is making it too complicated.”
Sound familiar? You don’t need another consultant to tell you what you already know. You need practitioners who will simplify the program, build what’s missing, and help you run it.
The education reality
Education institutions face a wide range of emergencies, often with very little warning: severe weather and hurricanes, wildfires, protests, threats of violence, cyberattacks, and the loss of the systems teaching and research depend on.
Colleges and universities that take part in federal student aid programs also answer to the Clery Act. Its regulations require an institution to have procedures to immediately notify the campus community when a significant emergency or dangerous situation involving an immediate threat to students or employees is confirmed on campus. The institution must also test its emergency response and evacuation procedures at least once a year, and document each test.
Students and parents expect more. They expect fast, accurate information, a campus that’s ready for the threats they read about, and leaders who have practiced the decisions before they have to make them.
The answer isn’t a separate plan for every threat and every office. It’s one program, with one crisis structure, one notification process, and one testing calendar, that the whole institution can run.
How we help education institutions
- Resiliency Diagnosis®. A standards-based evaluation of your crisis, continuity, and security capabilities, with a maturity score and a prioritized roadmap, in about 12 weeks.
- Crisis management. One crisis structure for the institution, with clear severity levels, roles, and decision authority, from the president’s cabinet to the campus.
- Business continuity. BIAs and plans that keep teaching, research, and campus operations running through a disruption.
- IT disaster recovery. Recovery requirements and testing for the systems students and faculty depend on.
- Exercises. Tabletops and simulations for severe weather, active assailant, cyber, and campus unrest scenarios, built to give your annual emergency test real value.
- Crisis communications. Emergency notification, messaging, and communication plans for students, parents, faculty, staff, and the media.
- Security operations centers. Strategy, design, and implementation of a security operations center that monitors every campus from one place.
- Security and threat assessment. Physical security assessments, threat assessment and management teams, and interim security leadership.
16 months
of interim security leadership for a global for-profit university during its sale
24×7
global security operations center at the heart of a reshaped security program
Zero
injuries or loss of life through major hurricanes, wildfires, and protests under the new crisis framework
Programs aligned to
Clery Act · ISO 22301 · ISO 22361 · ISO/IEC 27031
Our education work
All of our case studies are anonymized.
Colleges and universities
- Interim security leadership for a for-profit university with a global presence, working through a sale to private equity investors and challenges to its business model. We reshaped security around a 24×7 security operations center, built its first enterprise crisis management framework, revitalized business continuity, and recruited a permanent chief security officer. Read the case study.
More of our education work
- A unified security operations center for a major university with a multi-city presence, combining physical and cybersecurity teams in one space that monitors every campus and system from a central location. We also ran the multi-vendor RFP for a new emergency mass notification system and worked with the university, its security team, and the vendor to implement it and meet the Clery Act’s requirements.
- A threat assessment and management program for a major university in the southwestern United States, including a trained threat assessment team, to improve its response to threatening behavior by students, staff, faculty, and outside actors.
- A physical security risk assessment for a charter school whose facility wasn’t designed for today’s threats. Our evaluation and recommendations shaped the redesign of the facility.
Frequently asked questions
Can you help us meet the Clery Act’s emergency notification and testing requirements?
Yes. We help institutions build the notification procedures and the annual emergency response and evacuation test the Clery Act regulations require, and make the test an exercise that teaches your team something.
Do you work with K-12 schools, or only higher education?
Both. Our work includes public, private, and for-profit colleges and universities, K-12 public and private school systems, and charter schools.
What does a crisis management program look like for a university?
One crisis structure, clear severity levels, and defined decision authority, from the president’s cabinet to the campus, with plans for the scenarios you’re most likely to face and an exercise calendar to keep the team ready.
We’ve had a real incident. Where do we start?
With a Resiliency Diagnosis®. It shows what worked, what didn’t, and what to fix first, then gives you a prioritized roadmap your leadership can act on.
Can you lead our security program while we hire?
Yes. We provide interim security leadership, including chief security officer roles, and help recruit your permanent leader.
Do you design security operations centers?
Yes. We’ve designed and implemented security operations centers that combine physical and cybersecurity monitoring across multiple campuses.
We can help.
Let Bryghtpath put its education experience to work for your institution
From your next emergency test to your next crisis, we’ll help you build a program that protects your students, faculty, and staff when it matters.