School Safety Advocacy Council – ECPA – designed for K-12

Founded in 2004, the School Safety Advocacy Council (SSAC) provides school safety consulting, training, and emergency management services to school districts, law enforcement agencies, and communities. SSAC was founded by Curtis Lavarello and Sean Burke, who left their roles as Executive Director and President of the National Association of School Resource Officers to move beyond a law-enforcement-only approach toward a cooperative model that brings in all stakeholders. Burke is a 32-year law enforcement veteran with more than 25 years in school safety, a graduate of the FBI National Academy, and a founding member of the U.S. Department of Justice School Safety Technical Working Group. SSAC also hosts the National School Safety Conference and Exposition, the largest school safety conference in the nation, now in its 22nd year. SSAC's comprehensive safety assessments apply Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED) principles, review each district's policies and emergency plans, and deliver a full written report. Rather than focusing only on deficiencies, SSAC highlights what a school is doing well alongside areas for improvement, and offers multiple options for each recommendation, favoring low-cost or no-cost solutions whenever possible. Past engagements range from Los Angeles Unified, the largest district in the country, to one-room schoolhouses; for Wake County Public Schools in North Carolina, SSAC interviewed teachers and assessed every district facility, then helped the district act on focus areas including visitor management, emergency plan updates, an SRO operations committee, a mental health threat assessment team, and family reunification planning. Districts can also keep SSAC on retainer for a set number of annual training hours covering emergency management, school safety, and classroom safety concerns. Public entities can access SSAC's safety assessment, consulting, and training services through the ECPA cooperative contract (ECPA-2026114), eliminating the need for a separate solicitation.