Skip to main content
Add as a preferred source on Google

NWEA Report Recommends K–12 Natural Disaster Recovery Strategies

  • By Matt Jones
  • 01/13/26

Key Takeaways

  • Proactive planning and community partnerships are essential. NWEA emphasizes advance preparation—through risk assessment, emergency planning, drills, and strong communication—along with close collaboration between schools and community organizations to support recovery needs beyond academics.
  • Stability and emotional well-being should come before academics after disasters. Quickly restoring daily routines helps students regain a sense of normalcy, but the playbook stresses that students’ emotional recovery and teachers’ unmet needs must take priority over academic catch-up.
  • Long-term recovery requires layered supports for learning and mental health. NWEA recommends multi-tiered systems of support—ranging from universal social-emotional services to intensive therapeutic care—paired with targeted academic interventions to address learning losses that can exceed the amount of instructional time missed.

The Northwest Evaluation Association (NWEA), a K–12 assessment and research organization, recently announced the release of a new playbook for schools and communities recovering from extreme weather events, according to a news release. It offers recommendations for preparation, immediate recovery efforts, and longer-term strategies for rebuilding over the course of years.

"This new playbook is the second part of our research into the impacts of extreme weather events on teaching and learning," said NWEA’s Dr. Megan Kuhfeld, Director of Growth Modeling and Analytics. "The first report we released this past summer felt unfinished without looking at what districts can do to better prepare for future disasters and how best to support students and teachers through the recovery phase and beyond. This playbook is a collection of insights drawn from lessons in resilience from districts that have faced disasters and what they did to recover."

The research brief is titled “Lessons in resilience: A playbook for recovery from natural disasters.” The six recommendations are:

  1. Prepare a plan in advance. Steps include assessing community risk, developing an Emergency Operations Plan, building communication systems, and running practices and drills.
  2. Build relationships between schools and community organizations. The brief discusses how schools serve as community hubs that can meet needs like temporary housing, trauma counseling, and disaster relief donations.
  3. After a disaster strikes, try to move students back into a daily routine as soon as possible. Predictability, stability, and familiar routines or expectations are crucial to recreating a sense of normalcy.
  4. Students’ emotional recovery—as well as teachers’ unmet needs—must take priority over academic recovery.
  5. For long-term recovery efforts, build multi-tiered supports. These include universal support services (such as staff training and social-emotional learning), targeted support services (small-group interventions), and intensive support services (connecting students with therapists or coordinating continuing care).
  6. Provide additional support for students’ academic needs. According to the brief, “missed school days due to severe weather can translate to academic losses that are two to four times greater than the missed instructional time itself.” Strategies including offering tutoring and learning from prior interruptions.

The full brief is available on the NWEA website.

About the Author

Matt Jones is senior editor of Spaces4Learning. He can be reached at [email protected].

Featured

  • College of the Desert Hits Construction Milestone on New Campus

    College of the Desert recently announced that the construction of its new Palm Springs Campus in Palm Springs, Calif., recently reached a major construction milestone, according to a news release. The college is partnering with general contractor C.W. Driver Companies, which recently “topped out” the facility by placing the final beam in its structure.

  • How a Portable Sink Helped an Art Classroom Run More Smoothly

    Classroom design decisions can have outsized effects on instructional time and safety at schools juggling mismatched infrastructure, strict budgets, and crowded schedules — particularly in the arts. Between spilled paint and dirty brushes, art classes run smoother with a sink in the studio. But many schools don’t have a sink in every art classroom.

  • Deferred Maintenance Issues Growing at Universities, Gordian Reports

    U.S. colleges and universities are falling increasingly behind on facilities maintenance and repair, according to Gordian’s 13th annual State of Facilities in Higher Education report. The deferred capital renewal burden has reached $156 per gross square foot, an 8% increase over the previous year.

  • Classical building columns display digital data streams

    The Campus Nervous System: Why Facilities Risk Is Now a Leadership Issue in Higher Education

    Facility performance now intersects with safety, compliance, on-campus experience, institutional reputation, and financial resilience. That places it firmly on the leadership agenda.