AREA DISTRICTS TOUT SECURITY; OFFICIALS SAY PREVENTION KEY TO DEFUSE VIOLENCE.

Byline: Greg Gittrich Daily News Staff Writer

As violence exploded at a suburban Denver high school, Los Angeles school officials offered assurances Tuesday that city campuses were secure but no measures could make them immune to a similar attack.

``We try to be prepared to keep students safe. When something like this happens in other districts, we do look at everything again,'' said Hilda Ramirez, a spokeswoman for the district.

Since a 1984 sniper attack at a city elementary school, the Los Angeles Unified School District has required each of its 899 schools and centers to develop individualized crisis prevention plans, officials said.

A crisis team of up to 20 people at each school coordinates preventive measures, assesses the impact of incidents, advises administrators how to proceed and coordinates intervention and counseling, officials said.

Larger protective measures also are in place.

Principals at every middle and high school are required to conduct random checks of students with hand-held metal detectors at least once a day, school officials said.

In addition, 307 uniformed school police officers patrol the district's campuses, monitoring the comings and goings of more than 697,000 students.

All LAUSD schools are ``closed campuses'' with only one entrance open during the school day. The tragedy at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo., occurred on an open campus with several entrances and exits, which decreases the security of a school, officials said.

``No institution is fail-safe,'' said the LAUSD's Daniel Isaacs, assistant superintendent in charge of school operations. ``But our school district is at the forefront in terms of preventing violence and the use of weapons by students.''

In the wake of other recent school shootings across the country, school districts in suburbs around the San Fernando Valley stepped up security and started to track idle threats and profile students with a potential for violence.

The Antelope Valley Union High School District has eight campus supervisors and a Los Angeles County sheriff's deputy on each of its campuses. The district also recently put security fences around each school and installed surveillance cameras on its campuses.

In the Santa Clarita Valley, guards stand at gated entrances to schools in the William S. Hart Union High School District.

At Simi Valley Unified School District campuses, teachers use a verbal code - a simple phrase announced over the address system - to warn the staff to lock classroom doors in a way that won't frighten students. Following the LAUSD's lead, the district also is in the process of devising a crisis plan for emergency situations.

In the Conejo Valley Unified School District in Thousand Oaks, often rated the safest city in America, non-uniformed security officers monitor entry and exit points, and check the identification of visitors and students. School employees also use cell phones and cameras to keep watch over the schools.

``The more you hear what has happened (in Colorado) and the kind of firepower these individuals had and their lack of concern if they lived or not, it suggests unfortunately this kind of horrible terrorism can happen anywhere in America,'' said Richard Simpson, assistant superintendent of the Conejo Valley district.

It's not clear what policies were followed at Columbine High. Deborah Fallon, a spokeswoman for the Colorado Education Association, said the state's 176 districts set their own policies.

June Arnette, associate director of the National School Safety Center in Westlake Village, stressed there is ``no magic bullet or quick fix to cure school violence.''

``Programs must include prevention, intervention and security. A single effort focused on one of those three things won't work,'' Arnette said. ``We need to somehow convince students that they must report their fellow students if they think they will commit violence.''

Richard Lieberman, an LAUSD psychologist and a member of the emergency response team the National Association for School Psychologists deployed to the sites of school shootings, said the district's most effective preventive measure is ``The Gate Keeper.''

The program encourages students, staff members and parents to identify students who demonstrate signs of violence, Lieberman said.

Students prone to react violently generally have a history of bullying, victimizing, rejection or persecution, Lieberman said. The four most prominent signs of children with violent tendencies are cruelty to animals, fire setting, bed-wetting and a lack of remorse for actions that harm others, he said.

``When kids talk about suicide or violent actions, we teach staff, students and parents to act immediately and seek help,'' Lieberman said.

``The media plays the large-scale events up so every school in America worries this will happen in their school district. The fact is schools are safe havens for children.''

Less than 1 percent of child deaths happen on school campuses, Lieberman said. But the top three causes of child deaths - homicide, suicide and accidents - impact schools in every district throughout America constantly, he said.

``What we're learning is children need less psychotherapy and more a sense of . . . safety and security,'' Lieberman said.

``We know the warning signs and we know the troubled children. We do not know which one is going to go off. So at best we can try to identify all the at-risk kids and intervene early.''