Schools around the US are reviewing security plans, adding extra law enforcement patrols and readying counsellors for the first day of classes since the shooting massacre.

You can’t change what occurred but you try to do the best you can to help families cope

Districts are asking local law enforcement to increase patrols. School officials in some areas sent messages to parents addressing security or stressing that they have safety plans that are regularly tested.

While some officials refuse to discuss plans in detail, it was clear that vigilance will be high this week at schools around the US.

Additional police patrols are planned in northern Virginia around Fairfax County Public Schools, the largest school system in the Washington area with 181,000 students and at Hillsborough County, in the south of Florida, where unmarked and marked cars will patrol the schools along with officers in plain clothes.

The additional patrols will supplement officers already assigned to every high school and junior high school in the area to ease the fears of parents “who may feel uneasy about sending their children to school”.

Aside from pupils’ physical safety, administrators are also concerned about the psychological toll of the shootings. In Maryland’s suburbs outside Washington, Montgomery County Public Schools will have counsellors available at each school to support the system’s 149,000 students. Chief of staff Brian Edwards said officials posted advice online from the National Association of School Psychologists on Friday to help parents talk about acts of violence.

“Obviously, this is a very difficult situation that all school communities are dealing with and the entire nation is dealing with,” Edwards said. “You can’t change what occurred but you try to do the best you can to help families cope.”

In Tucson, Arizona, where a mass shooting last January killed six and wounded Representative Gabrielle Giffords and 12 others, the largest school district increased security. Planning is under way to help teachers and students with grief and fear issues when school resumes, and the district is working with Tucson police on security issues.