Are Post-Columbine Schools Any Safer?

April 20 -- When a Miami 14-year-old was stabbed to death in a school bathroom, allegedly by a classmate who brought a steak knife to school in his backpack, it was a shocking sign of the dangers some schoolkids still face, five years after the Columbine shootings.

With all the zero-tolerance policies, metal detectors and police officers posted in the hallways, the 2003-04 school year has already been the deadliest for America's students since 1998-99, according to a study by National School Safety and Security Services, a national consulting firm specializing in school security and crisis preparedness training.

Schools are still the safest place for kids, even with the surge in killings and other crimes committed on school grounds, but many educators and security experts say not enough is being done.

A combination of budget cuts, shifted priorities, misdirected efforts, distracted attention and complacency has allowed schools to backslide in their efforts to keep kids safe, they say.

Complacency, Denial Leave Kids Vulnerable

Already there have been 43 "school-associated violent deaths," according to the study, which was done with the assistance of the National Association of School Resource Officers, an organization of law enforcement personnel who serve in schools.

Studies done by the same groups with the same criteria found just 16 school-associated deaths in the 2002-03 academic year and 17 the year before.

"We took five steps forward in the year and a half after Columbine, but we've stalled and maybe even slipped back since then," said Kenneth Trump, president of National School Safety and Security Services. "Perhaps the biggest threat to school safety is not a kid with a gun or a knife, but our own complacency, denial and pushing these issues to the back burner when there hasn't been a high-profile crisis in the news."

On April 20, 1999, Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris killed 12 fellow students and a teacher at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo., before committing suicide.