No district leader plans for the worst hoping it will happen. They plan because they know, at some level, that it can — and that when it does, the strength of what they have built will shape not just how the district responds, but how the entire community recovers.
This article is informed by a session at the February 2026 Large Unit District Association (LUDA) conference in Bloomington, Illinois, where Dr. Becca Lamon, Superintendent of Ball-Chatham School District, shared what her district learned after a community tragedy tested every system they had. Her candor about what worked, what didn't, and what she wished she had built before that day shapes the thinking here.
But the questions she raised — about communication, about family engagement, about mental health infrastructure, about what "prepared" actually means — belong to every district leader, regardless of what they have or haven't faced yet.
Preparation Is a Foundation, Not a Finish Line
Most districts have a crisis management plan. Many have practiced reunification protocols, assigned roles, and built communication protocols. That work matters. But experienced leaders who have been through a significant crisis will often say the same thing: the plan is not what carries you through. The relationships built before the plan was ever needed tend to matter as much.
Research supports this. Districts that invest in sustained, proactive relationships — with law enforcement, hospitals, city officials, mental health providers, and most critically, with families — are better positioned to navigate the unpredictability of a real event, because they are not making introductions during the worst moments. The infrastructure for coordination already exists.
The practical implication: crisis preparedness is ongoing work, not a document that sits in a binder. It means regularly stress-testing your plan against multi-building scenarios, knowing who holds authority at a unified command center, and having active relationships with community partners and agencies who would collaborate if something happened tomorrow.
Dr. Lamon noted that even a district that had mapped 27 scenarios and prepared extensively found gaps it hadn't anticipated — gaps that only became visible under the pressure of a real event. The goal is not a perfect plan. The goal is a plan that is living, tested, and connected to the people and systems around it.
Family Communication Is the Work, Not the Afterthought
When a crisis hits, families don't wait. They call, they text, they post, they show up. Underneath that, many are looking for a signal that the district is aware, engaged, and working on behalf of their children.
Districts that communicate early, often, and with genuine care tend to preserve trust during the hardest moments. Those that go quiet, or communicate only when they have complete information, often find that rebuilding trust becomes its own sustained challenge.
Effective crisis communication shares a few consistent characteristics. It is proactive rather than reactive. It acknowledges what is not yet known rather than waiting for certainty. It uses plain, human language — not institutional distance. And it treats every communication as a signal to families about whether they are partners in the process.
One small but meaningful practice Dr. Lamon described: replacing the reflexive "How are you?" with "How can I support you today?" when reaching out to affected families. The difference is subtle, but in a heightened moment, it can signal to a family that the conversation is genuinely open.
A centralized resource hub — a single web page where families can find counseling information, updates, and answers to common questions — can also meaningfully reduce the volume of incoming calls and help families feel oriented rather than lost. Both are practical steps districts can begin building into their family engagement approach now.
Mental Health Infrastructure Can't Be Built in a Crisis
One of the clearer lessons from districts that have navigated significant community trauma is this: the mental health support that tends to matter most in a crisis is the support that was already in place before it happened.
When clinical relationships exist — when students and families already know how to access mental health services, when staff have a clear referral pathway, when the district has a trusted provider embedded in the school community — those systems can flex and scale to meet an acute moment of need. When they don't exist, districts are trying to build infrastructure while simultaneously using it.
Research consistently shows that access to school-based mental health services is associated with better outcomes not only in crisis situations, but in the ongoing, quieter work of supporting students through anxiety, grief, family stress, and the ordinary weight of growing up. Students who are already connected to support are generally better positioned to navigate disruption.
For staff, the same principle applies. Dr. Lamon required that every staff member who had been at the reunification site receive at least one counseling session — because unprocessed secondary trauma among staff carries its own risks. Building that expectation into policy before an event, rather than navigating it as a judgment call during one, is something any district can consider now.
If you are building or strengthening your district's clinical infrastructure, Cartwheel's team is available to share how we partner with school districts to provide school-based mental health services, including family therapy and staff therapy.
Keeping Families and Students at the Center — Before, During, and After
A crisis does not end when the immediate emergency does. For families directly affected — and for the broader school community — the harder work often begins in the weeks and months that follow, when external support has faded and the district is left holding the ongoing needs of students, staff, and caregivers who are still processing what happened.
The districts that navigate that longer arc most effectively tend to be those that have already built a culture of family partnership. When families experience the school as an institution that communicates proactively, connects them to resources, and takes their concerns seriously, they are more likely to engage with support and more willing to reach out when a child is struggling.
That culture doesn't emerge from a single family engagement event or a well-designed newsletter. It is built through consistent, relationship-first practice: meeting families where they are, normalizing help-seeking, and making it genuinely easy to access services.
For families supporting children through grief or trauma, having accessible, developmentally appropriate guidance can help. Cartwheel's on-demand webinar, Talking with Kids About Grief and Loss, is a free resource for parents and caregivers navigating these conversations.
The Question Every Leader Should Be Asking Now
Dr. Lamon closed her session with an observation that has stayed with the leaders who heard it: the goal of crisis preparation is not to make chaos disappear. It is to make it controlled. The difference between controlled chaos and sheer chaos is built long before the crisis arrives — in the plans that are tested, the relationships that are maintained, and the systems that are already in place when they are needed most.
The question for district leaders isn't abstract. It's practical: are the systems, the relationships, and the culture we are building today strong enough to hold when something difficult arrives? That's worth sitting with — and worth acting on.
If you'd like to explore how Cartwheel partners with school districts in Illinois and across the country on mental health support, we'd welcome the conversation.
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