NEA’s School Crisis Guide

Schools experience a wide variety of crises that have the potential to harm the mental and physical health, learning environment, and safety of students and educators.

School crises can be on a large scale, such as severe

violence, hostage situations, and natural disasters that require an emergency response from the community.

Or, they can be more individualized, such as a car accident or the unexpected death of a student.

In NEA's School Crisis Guide, we offer a step-by-step outline of what to do before, during, and after any school or community crisis like a natural disaster. 

• Prevent: Avoid the occurrence of incidents or lessen the harm done by unavoidable incidents.
• Prevent: Plan for worst-case scenarios, including a continuous cycle of planning, practicing, and evaluating actions aimed at an effective response to an incident.  
• Respond: Steps to minimize harm to people and property during a particular incident.
• Recover: Restore learning and teaching environment after an incident.