Building Your Learning Continuity Plan or Business Continuity Plan

When a network goes down or a system fails, schools don’t just lose access to technology—they risk losing instructional time, communication channels, and operational stability. Every minute offline can ripple across classrooms, campuses, and communities.

That’s why CoSN developed Building Your Learning Continuity Plan or Business Continuity Plan, a resource created by its CIRCUITS Committee—Critical Infrastructure and Resilient Clouds for Unified Innovation and Technology in Schools. The guide provides district leaders and technology teams with a framework to strengthen resilience, protect data, and ensure learning continues even when systems are disrupted.

The topic is also featured in a recent episode of The CoSN Podcast. The episode explores the key themes from the CIRCUITS document and walks listeners through how to design, activate, and test a continuity plan that prioritizes safety, communication, and recovery.

Two Plans, One Mission

The CIRCUITS resource explains that every district needs two complementary strategies: a Learning Continuity Plan (LCP) and a Business Continuity Plan (BCP).

• The LCP focuses on maintaining teaching and learning during disruptions.

• The BCP ensures that district operations—payroll, communication systems, and essential technology services—remain functional.

Together, they form a unified approach to resilience that safeguards both instruction and operations.

Districts are encouraged to define their scope and activation criteria early in the planning process. That includes clarifying who has authority to activate the plan, what events trigger activation, and which systems are considered mission-critical. By setting these parameters in advance, districts can respond quickly and confidently when an outage occurs.

People and Safety First

Every continuity plan begins with people—not technology.

The CIRCUITS guide emphasizes that life and safety always come before system recovery. Personnel must follow approved safety protocols, coordinate with local authorities, and wait until conditions are declared safe before beginning recovery efforts.

Leadership teams should establish a clear RACI chart (Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, Informed) to identify who makes decisions, who coordinates communication, and who manages technical restoration. Each critical staff member should have multiple contact methods and a backup contact to ensure communication lines remain open.

When everyone understands their role, recovery becomes faster, safer, and more coordinated.

Backup and Recovery: Building Redundancy and Trust

Reliable backups are the cornerstone of any continuity plan. CoSN’s CIRCUITS resource advises districts to store backups in a separate geographic location—not in the same physical space as primary systems.

Districts are encouraged to:

• Test backups regularly to verify full system and data restoration.

• Review cloud provider contracts annually to clarify recovery responsibilities.

• Document the exact location, process, and permissions required to access backups.

The guide also highlights three recovery options:

• Hot Sites – Fully equipped facilities that can take over immediately if the primary site fails.

• Cold Sites – Designated spaces where equipment can be set up as part of recovery.

• Cloud Recovery – Using Infrastructure-as-a-Service environments to restore systems virtually and on demand.

Many districts use a hybrid approach, relying on cloud recovery for rapid response and hot or cold sites for long-term restoration.

Testing and Verification

No continuity plan is complete until it’s tested.

The CIRCUITS committee encourages districts to schedule regular tabletop exercises and full restoration drills to validate readiness. Tabletop exercises help leadership teams simulate real-world incidents—such as data breaches or extended outages—and walk through activation, communication, and decision-making steps.

Full restoration drills go a step further, confirming that backups can be restored and that dependent systems—like authentication, networking, and cloud access—function as intended.

Routine testing ensures that every component of the plan performs reliably when it matters most.

The Power of Documentation

Comprehensive documentation transforms a continuity plan from a concept into an actionable blueprint.

CoSN recommends including:

• A Business Impact Analysis (BIA) to identify and prioritize critical systems.

• Detailed recovery procedures for each essential service.

• Appendices with contact lists, vendor contracts, maps, and sample forms.

• A communications plan outlining who communicates with leadership, staff, and the public.

Keeping this documentation updated, accessible, and centralized ensures the district can respond effectively even under pressure.

Communication Builds Confidence

Transparent communication during a disruption is essential. The CIRCUITS resource encourages districts to establish a communications planning matrix—a structured approach to identify who delivers messages, what information is shared, and how updates reach staff, families, and the community.

Consistent, coordinated communication builds trust, reduces confusion, and reassures stakeholders that the district has a plan in place to maintain learning and operations.

From Planning to Preparedness

The CIRCUITS Committee—formerly the Network & Systems Design Committee—developed this resource to help districts move from theory to practice. It reflects CoSN’s ongoing commitment to advancing resilient infrastructure and safeguarding learning through smart, sustainable technology planning.

A well-tested continuity plan does more than restore systems—it restores confidence. By investing in prevention, documentation, and communication, districts can protect both instruction and the people behind it.

Learn More

• Download the CoSN Resource: Building Your Learning Continuity Plan or Business Continuity Plan

• Explore CoSN CIRCUITS: Critical Infrastructure and Resilient Clouds for Unified Innovation and Technology in Schools

• Contacts:

  • Amy McLaughlin, MS, MA, CETL, CISM, CHPS, CDPSE, CISSP — Project Director, CoSN CIRCUITS — amclaughlin@cosn.org

  • Cara Dollinger — External Relations Specialist, CoSN — cdollinger@cosn.org

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