Evaluation of a School Based Disaster Preparedness Program

This study evaluated a school based intervention designed to better prepare teachers and staff members in an elementary school to improve their knowledge and confidence of disaster preparedness. Participants included 19 teachers and I 0 staff members of an elementary school in San Mateo County, CA. With hundreds of schools scattered in the communities and the recent disasters in our country there is a growing awareness of the need for disaster preparedness in schools. A pretest-posttest was administered to measure changes in knowledge and confidence following a school based intervention of disaster preparedness education. There was a significant improvement in scores that appeared in the paired t tests which demonstrated that the school based disaster preparedness intervention increased their knowledge and confidence. This school based intervention provides a framework for other school nurses to implement similar interventions that address the disaster preparedness needs of the school, staff and student\u27s safety