There's a count
API you can use to get the number of documents in the collection. If that number is 0, it means it's the first time the collection was initialized, so you can add your 36 instances with status 0 there. For example:
WL.JSONStore.init(...)
.then(function () {
return WL.JSONStore.get('collection').count();
})
.then(function (numOfDocsInCollection) {
if (numOfDocsInCollection < 1) {
//this code will be reached only the first time the collection has been initialized
} else {
//this code will be reached every other time
}
});