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In 1984, I was part of the first responder team sent to 49th Street Elementary School in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) after one of the country’s first school shootings happened there. Two children were killed, and a dozen children and staff were wounded. 

Following that heartbreaking tragedy, I saw the outline of an approach that has developed further since my time operating on the frontlines of trauma response and recovery. The steps we take to prevent violence and tragedy in schools matter. These steps matter because prevention makes terrible situations less likely to occur; and when they do happen, the prevention protocols in place minimize physical and psychological harm.

We call this planning “precovery,” which can be defined as strategies and actions to prevent and to limit harm to the school community. It has been well-documented in the aftermath of disasters and mass violence that students and adults suffer from emotional distress, cognitive impairment, and a range of behavioral changes. In students, the reactions include school absence, emotional withdrawal, depression, and traumatic stress. In some cases, abusive, hostile, and aggressive behaviors develop after students are victim or witness to violence or the threat of violence.

This is no small problem. In 2020, the National Center for Education Statistics found that 77% of all schools in the U.S. grappled with at least one act of violence on the school campus. In addition, the rate of school shootings has risen 963% over the past 20 years. Natural disasters like wildfires have increased in numbers and intensity, destroying homes, hospitals, churches, and schools as well as other vital institutions representing places of safety. As one of those institutions that function ‘in loco parentis’, schools must make precovery a watchword.

Michelle Kefford, principal of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland Florida, gave this sage advice after commemorating the seventh year after the massacre of students and staff in her high school: “Don’t wait until tragedy takes place. Take precovery seriously. Start now!”

Recognizing this, the policy and procedures bulletin for the LAUSD Crisis Intervention in Schools has been regularly revised and updated since originally written in 1984. Annual training of the crisis teams is based on the updated policy bulletin.

Any precovery work must have the following essential elements: a clear action plan shared with staff, a process to put policies and procedures in place to prevent harm, a review process to improve established procedures using lessons learned from schools that have suffered from mass violence or destructive natural disasters, and training for educators to prepare them to participate in the recovery process and maximize the return of all students to the classroom.

A prominent survey in my field once asked educators about their school safety plans. At the administrative level, everything appeared to be in order: School leaders reported that the plans were in place, they were updated, and they were understood. The plan was located in a binder in the front office.

However, as researchers posed the same questions to faculty and other staff, massive gaps in communication became clear. Although staff members knew that there was a plan, somewhere out there, they did not know what it contained or what their role was should a shooting or disaster occur. Many indicated that in a widespread disaster they would be torn between their responsibility to the students in their classrooms and their responsibility to ensure the safety of their own children and families.

Building and maintaining a strong foundation for precovery requires:

•  Establishing trusting relationships with all school stakeholders – students, educators, parents, and the community.
• Establishing open channels of calm and helpful communication.
•  Building and maintaining crisis response and recovery infrastructure with meaningful policies, roles and responsibility that are spelled out in advance, giving educators the opportunity to plan for both classroom and family safety.
• Expanding capacity to train staff in their individual roles as well as in a variety of prevention and intervention scenarios.

For students, open communication and meaningful connections are invitations to seek help when they’re in distress, reducing the feelings of isolation that can lead to harmful behaviors. Simultaneously, these relationships enhance an entire school community’s capacity for early intervention, as teachers and peers are more likely to recognize warning signs of trauma and to reach out to troubled students with help and support.

At a time when roughly two-thirds of public schools are reporting at least one violent incident each school year and natural disasters are intensifying, we need more proactive safety measures in place. Precovery strategies offer schools the means to reduce or nullify potential threats and extreme anxiety, social and emotional pain before they escalate.

Being able to navigate both personal and community crises with the support of a school system that protects all members of the learning community and plans ahead builds resilience in the face of future adversity. Over the past 40 years, the Los Angeles Unified School District has been exemplary in these efforts.

The most recent example of precovery can be seen in the many steps that the Pasadena Unified School District (PUSD) took in advance of the devastating Eaton Wildfire that destroyed homes, businesses, and schools. In the past three years, district leaders created and maintained effective school and district-level crisis teams. They implemented training for staff in Trauma Informed Schools for Educators that expanded knowledge about trauma recovery.

They provided training to staff in Psychological First Aid, an evidence-based intervention designed to reduce the distress of students who have experienced a traumatic event and restore their ability to return to school in a safe and supportive environment. All of these actions created a comprehensive precovery action agenda that prepared the district and its educators to welcome 9,000 students who had experienced evacuations and, for some, the loss of their homes and schools.

We may not know how long recovery from this widespread disaster will take, but we do know that putting precovery into action not only prevents trauma from becoming worse, it also helps to heal it.

Marleen Wong is an expert in trauma-informed care and school safety, with experience spanning research, program development, consultation, and training. She is the co-founder and CEO of the Center for Safe and Resilient Schools and Workplaces, and she frequently consults with the U.S. Department of Education and other federal agencies in connection to school shootings and national disasters.