The devastating turn in mental health, academic performance and substance abuse is revealed in a series of federal aid applications from these school districts. The documents paint the most detailed picture of what really happens to a school after a mass shooting. Once the funerals are over, the TV cameras leave and students attempt to return to normalcy, there have been dramatic turns for the worse in academic performance, behavior and mental wellness.

"Personally, I hate the word closure, because I don't think there ever is closure to anything like this," said Melissa Reeves, past president of the National Association of School Psychologists and an associate professor at Winthrop University in South Carolina.

“You will have individuals that quite honestly within a couple months might be back to a typical day-to-day routine and not showing a whole lot of traumatic impacts,” Reeves said. “You'll have other individuals that it could take years of recovery.”

The details of what happened at these schools are laid out in applications for aid under a federal program aimed at helping schools recover from violent incidents.

Santa Fe High School officials said that by the end of the school year that followed the shooting, approximately 60 percent of all students had visited with a counselor experienced in trauma, and the counselors provided more than 3,400 hours of support. In Parkland, since the shooting, requests for added support related to mental, physical and behavioral problems rose by 78 percent.

Marjory Stoneman Douglas used to rank near the bottom of high schools in the district for instances of substance abuse. After the shooting, it shot up 20 places on the list. Meanwhile, there has been a “dramatic decrease” in the school’s passage rates for English and algebra assessments.

The grant applications also reveal how the toll of the shootings spreads throughout a school district.

Across the Broward County School district, where Parkland is located, incidents of drug use or possession grew from 511 incidents the previous year to 637 that school year. "Other major offenses" grew from 317 to 367. Physical attacks grew from 34 the previous year to 128.

Threats and intimidation grew to 368 incidents compared to 337 the previous year and tobacco offenses to 439 from 127.

The applications are for a program known as Project SERV. The “School Emergency Response to Violence" cash is intended to fund education-related services to help schools recover from a violent or traumatic event. The grant program, which started in 2001, provides financial help for K-12 schools and colleges that have experienced "a traumatic event of such magnitude as to severely disrupt the teaching and learning environment," according to the department.

Grants also may be given to schools that have experienced suicide clusters, terrorism, major natural disasters, bus accidents, student homicides off campus and hate crimes committed against students or staff.

“We are looking for much-needed outside funding sources to assist in the physical and emotional recovery effort, as well as, planning for future violence prevention and mental/emotional health training and support,” the Santa Fe Independent School District’s 2019/2020 request states.

The shootings last year were among the deadliest ever for high schools in the U.S. Marjory Stoneman Douglas tops the list with 14 students and three staff members killed on Feb. 14, 2018. Santa Fe High School lost eight students and two teachers on May 18, 2018.

The Department of Education last year awarded the Broward County Public Schools and Santa Fe Independent School District $1 million each in Project SERV grants to help in the immediate aftermath of the shootings. The applications for additional money detail continuing intense needs. Newtown, Conn., Public Schools received more than $6.4 million in Project SERV grants in the years after the 2012 mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School.

The Education Department said it is reviewing the school districts' requests for additional funds.

Lauren Hogg, a 16-year-old Parkland survivor who co-founded March for Our Lives, told House lawmakers during a school security hearing last month that she and her friends are re-traumatized with every new shooting and that “every single aspect” of her life has changed.

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“Even in crowded spaces, places I used to go and loved to go to, whether that be Disneyland or a concert, I can't go there without being scared that something's going to happen,” she said. “So, even the things that would be traditionally viewed as fun and an escape turn, into themselves, an act of trauma where you don't know what to do and you don't know how to act.”

In Broward County, schools have been “inundated with a dramatic increase in threats and incidents of violence,” according to the district’s July application. Mandatory recommendations for expulsion have doubled, particularly for assaults, threats and the possession or sale of marijuana, the request states.

The district needs additional staff, including school social workers to assist students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School and feeder schools, according to the request. “There has been an increase in mental health concerns among students at MSD as exhibited by anxiety, depression, cutting/self-injurious behavior, school avoidance, suicidal ideation, illegal substance usage, etc.,” the document explains.

Also, additional instruction time after school is needed for credit recovery programs for students who didn’t complete the spring 2018 semester.

The school district in Santa Fe has boosted its security and police presence because of increases in student misconduct requiring disciplinary measures, according to its grant application. But their presence has also helped students experiencing a “continued fear factor of attending school” have a feeling of safety, the application said. Students will require emotional and mental health help “for the coming year and for years to come.

The district has hired a crisis communications firm, which is helping to establish a Citizens Advisory Task Force, and it continues to rely on support personnel to track student absenteeism. Faculty and staff still need additional training in self-care, trauma-informed strategies and suicide awareness and prevention to assist traumatized students.

“Based on data from districts who have experienced similar strategies, the incidence of suicide increases following the one-year mark of the tragedy,” the application said.

