Disaster planning and training for parochial Armenian schools in the Los Angeles area

California's public schools are required by law to have robust disaster and emergency plans, training, and mitigation measures. These laws designed for public schools do not apply equally to all schools. In the greater Los Angeles area, there is a strong Armenian community with several parochial schools. As participant-observers with strong ties to the Armenian community and these schools, the authors of this study developed and conducted a training program for the staff and faculty that included planning meetings, classroom sessions, and full-scale disaster drills that included student participation. The staff and faculty of these schools implemented search and rescue, first aid, and mass care activities under the incident command system. These activities required substantial collaboration and stakeholder buy-in. Strong social cohesion within the Armenian community, as well as the collective Armenian experience with earthquakes and other disasters, helped create a successful community building activity to improve disaster resiliency in spite of the lack of regulatory requirements. This success is now being replicated in other Armenian schools, and there is potential for the model to be applied to other communities.