In today’s fast-paced world, the unforeseen can strike at any moment, from natural disasters to cyberattacks. Preparing for such events with robust business continuity and incident response plans is crucial for K-12 school districts, yet often, it’s the very thing that gets pushed to the back burner. The primary culprit? A severe lack of time. Crafting comprehensive plans from scratch can feel like a monumental task, leading many districts to defer this vital work until it’s too late.anomaly orskqih7fnc unsplash

This is where artificial intelligence (AI) tools like Gemini or MagicSchool emerge as game-changers. These intelligent assistants can dramatically streamline the process of developing essential preparedness documents, turning a daunting undertaking into a manageable one for school districts.

cosnplan Consider organizations like CoSN, which provides invaluable templates specifically for school districts to develop their own comprehensive plans. These templates, often detailed and extensive, can be fed into AI tools. The AI can then intelligently parse the template, identifying critical sections and generating prompts for district staff to fill in the blanks with specific information relevant to their unique environment. For example, instead of staring at a blank page, an AI might prompt, “Please describe your primary student data storage systems and their backup protocols,” or “List key school personnel and their emergency contact information for your incident response team.”

This guided approach significantly reduces the time and effort required for school districts to complete complex documents. It transforms the intimidating process of plan creation into an interactive Q&A session, ensuring that all necessary details are considered without district staff having to manually navigate every section of a lengthy template.

However, a crucial caution must be exercised when leveraging AI for such sensitive tasks. It is paramount that school district users never provide any proprietary or confidential information directly into these AI tools. This includes details about their specific computing environment, network configurations, security vulnerabilities, or any other data that could compromise their systems or student information if exposed. Instead, users should generalize information or use placeholders for sensitive data, filling in the specifics offline.

By harnessing the power of AI to pre-populate and guide the completion of templates, K-12 school districts can overcome the common barrier of time scarcity, significantly improving their readiness for unexpected events. AI acts as a facilitator, making the creation of vital business continuity and incident response plans more accessible and efficient, ultimately strengthening a school district’s resilience.

Thanks to Gemini for helping to write this blog post.

AUTHOR: Chris Bailey, Technology Director, Edmonds School District Western Governors University (WA)
CoSN Cybersecurity Committee member

Published on October 14th, 2025

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