The Lake Washington School District (LWSD) has implemented a comprehensive program to help identify, and mitigate concussions among high school athletes in the district.

In August, all LWSD football coaches received “Heads Up” training, a concussion management program developed by USA Football, as part of the Washington Interscholastic Athletic Association requirement for concussion management training for football head coaches.

All coaches will be required to have the same training in the 2016-17 school year.

Although concussions can occur in many high school sports, statistically football players are at the highest risk. Nearly half (47 percent) of all reported sports concussions occur during high school football, according to Head Case, a Chicago-based sports technology company. The company also reported that 33 percent of concussions occur during practice.

At Lake Washington and Juanita High Schools, the district reported two and six concussions respectively from the football teams in 2014. In 2015 there were 13 reported concussions on the Lake Washington football team and two were reported at Juanita.

“There are different reasons why the numbers could be so different in different years,” LWSD spokesperson Kathryn Reith wrote in an email. “Certainly, it all depends on what actually happens in games, which can be pretty random. It also depends to some degree on students self-reporting symptoms.”

She added that they have also encouraged students recently to report concussions, which may have impacted the numbers.

LWSD is also instituting the ImPACT program, which uses neurocognitive testing of student-athletes to create a personal baseline assessment of functioning.

If a concussion is suspected, the student is retested to compare results. In this way, they won’t have to rely solely on self-reporting or obvious symptoms.

“For me, this is such a great way to promote what we’re doing as a school and improve the safety of our kids,” said Lake Washington High School football head coach A.J. Parnell, who also played college football. “For football to continue and thrive and advance, we have to make the game safer and be proactive in our approach. It’s an extremely important thing we need to deal with.”

Parnell added that while concussions aren’t always preventable, knowing what causes them, and the symptoms of one, can allow coaches and the athletes to make better decisions during practice and games.

“There’s no way to prevent it,” he said. “Some people, they can bump their head on the door and boom, that does it. There’s no true way to say ‘this is how we’re going to stop it,’ but if we can be proactive on the front end… that’s something that could help. The reality is there’s risk in everything you do. I think my job as a coach is to try and take care of the risk as best we can.”

Similar testing is also being done with girls soccer, with other sports added throughout the year. The district’s goal is to eventually test all athletes.

“As doctors and scientists have learned more about the effects of concussions, it has become clear that we need to put more protections in place for students most at risk,” said LWSD Superintendent Dr. Traci Pierce in a press release statement. “We want to approach this issue from a prevention standpoint first as well as appropriately managing concussions that do happen.”

The school district is also looking to replace football helmets that have lower protection ratings. Virginia Tech developed a rating system to differentiate helmets, ranging from one star – least protective, to five star – most protective. The district is removing all helmets rated less than four stars from inventory and have purchased five-star helmets to replace them. All new helmets purchased in the future will be five-star helmets.

In 2009, the Washington State Legislature passed the Zackery Lystedt Law, which prohibits athletes under 18 from participating in a game or practice if they are suspected to have suffered from a concussion.

They are not allowed to return until they receive written authorization from a properly trained medical professional.

A football player at Tahoma High School in Maple Valley, Lystedt suffered an undiagnosed concussion in 2006 during a game that resulted in a brain hemorrhage.