Citation

Hassan EM, Mahmoud HN, Ellingwood BR. Earths Future 2020; 8(10): e2020EF001518.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2020, John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1029/2020EF001518

PMID

33283016 PMCID

Abstract

Natural disasters may have catastrophic and long-lasting impacts on communities' physical, economic, and social infrastructure. Slow recovery of educational services following such events is likely to cause traumatic stress in children, lead families to out-migrate, and affect the community's overall social stability.

METHODS for quantifying and assessing the restoration process of educational systems and their dependencies on other supporting infrastructure have not received adequate attention. This study introduces, for the first time, a new framework to evaluate the functionality, recovery, and resilience of a school system following severe earthquake events. The framework considers both the quantity and quality of education services provided, school enrollment, and staff employment, as well as the interaction between various agents such as staff, students, parents, administration, and community. A virtual testbed community, Centerville, is utilized to highlight the application of this framework. The impact of school reopening policies on the number of students enrolled as well as the potential for homeschooling is also considered. The availability of various enrollment alternatives for students, backup classroom space and functioning utility systems, and facilitation of staff and supplies transfer between schools substantially increase the resilience of the education service.

Language: en

Keywords

earthquakes; recovery; community resilience; educational policy; functionality; school systems