After the shootings at public schools from Paducah, Ky., to Littleton, Colo., school administrators are trying to short-circuit potential violence and allay fears.

Back to school once was a time of sharp pencils, fresh clothes, old friends and new teachers. This week and next, it will mark a new era in school security.

"Safety is absolutely on everybody's mind right now," said Curt Rose, assistant executive director of the Pennsylvania School Boards Association. "An administrator would probably be considered incompetent right now if they weren't dealing with this."

Consider these examples:

Buzz-in doors and surveillance cameras will be used to screen all visitors at the Upper Merion Area School District's new Bridgeport and Candlebrook Elementary Schools.

Photo identification cards will be required for students and faculty in the Marple Newtown district's high school and middle schools.

Over the summer, the Coatesville Area School District bought its own bomb-sniffing dog, police SWAT members practiced at Wissahickon High School and walk-through metal detectors were installed at 11 Philadelphia high schools.

From Bucks County to Burlington County, the list goes on and on.

Concerns about school safety have risen in recent years, and many of the region's schools have been enhancing safety measures for some time. But many school administrators and safety experts agree that the unfettered slaughter of 14 students and one teacher at Littleton's Columbine High School in April galvanized the current push to make schools safer.

"We introduced the one-door entrance [policy] as a response to Columbine," said Tony Buckland, security chief of the Southeast Delco School District, which has an 11-member armed staff of security officers.

In Willingboro, Burlington County, special teams were set up to respond to threats or violence and to keep students calm during crises.

The post-Columbine anxiety among school administrators and teachers triggered numerous local, regional and statewide meetings to discuss ways to prevent violence.

Michele Haskins, a spokeswoman for the Pennsylvania Department of Education, said representatives from more than 300 of Pennsylvania's 501 public school districts attended safety seminars in May sponsored by the state.

Next month, the Pennsylvania Attorney General's Office will hold another large "School Safety Summit" at the Lancaster Resorts Inn for school administrators and parents.

"The big question right now is: How do you write a comprehensive crisis-response plan for a school district?" Haskins said.

It is a question that most administrators have never had to face.

"We have been dealing with safety issues for the past six years," Abington superintendent James McCaffery said. "But after Columbine, it was clear that we were going to have to start dealing with this in a way we had never done before. The worst thing you can do is say you've done nothing."

Last week, Abington held a seminar on "Critical Incident Survival Training" sponsored by the Pennsylvania State Police and attended by neighboring school administrators. One lesson learned, McCaffery said, was that during a crisis "you don't parade the students out of the building across open fields."

Bucks County's Pennridge School District recently installed security boxes in all 14 of its buildings. Kept in the boxes are floor plans, emergency telephone numbers and other information that police and rescue personnel might need in an emergency.

The Pottstown School District will begin random searches of all middle and high school students with hand-held metal detectors bought this year. All seventh- to 12th-grade Pottstown teachers and students must wear photo cards. Additional security personnel also have been hired.

In October, $20 million in state grant money will be distributed to schools to buy security equipment, hire hall monitors or do just about anything related to safety.

Administrators say they have been inundated with sales pitches from security firms.

"Vendors have sprung up all over the country trying to sell stuff for school safety and we need someone to review and coordinate all that for us," said Colonial School District superintendent Stan Durtan.

John Armato, spokesman for the Pottstown schools, added, "Right now, if you want to make $1 million, you would go into the school-safety business."

Ted Campbell, president of Fortress Protection in Cherry Hill, said heightened awareness has made it easier for administrators to buy systems without opposition from parents and students.

"Schools in the past were a community hub, and everyone was comfortable walking in and out," said Campbell, whose company has designed and installed security systems for all 22 Philadelphia-area Catholic high schools.

The cost of security systems can range from $10,000 to $125,000 per building, Campbell said. Many of the region's Catholic high schools now have sophisticated, computer-controlled access-card entrances.

Campbell, who has been handling school security since 1988, said many administrators shudder at the notion of metal detectors at their front doors.

"People can deal with cameras," Campbell said. "They see them at restaurants and hotels and stores. But metal detectors are the biggest, most abrasive move you can make. You see those at jails and courthouses."

Making buildings safe without making them resemble Alcatraz has been a difficult balancing act.

Chester High School, for instance, will stop using armed security guards contracted from a private firm. Its new security force consists of trained, unarmed officers who wear matching blazers and slacks.

"What I want is [security] people who will have the trust and the respect of the students," said Marshall Smith, Chester's security chief. "My belief is the majority of kids want boundaries and expect limits."

Not everyone is ready to embrace the high-security trend.

Avon Grove School superintendent Thomas L. Seidenberger said he realized after holding focus groups with parents last year that "They don't want metal detectors. They don't want cops. They don't want dogs."

Seidenberger said he is considering security cameras.

North Penn School District spokeswoman Christine Liberaski said "there will be no video cameras and no metal detectors" when children arrive for class next week.

"We have stiffened up on making people sign in," Liberaski said, by posting a receptionist at the entrance to each school.

In Pennsauken, Camden County, parents have backed a pilot program that will require identification cards for middle-school students and faculty, said Betty Slater, who represents the district's 11 PTAs.

"Our society's changed a little bit, and it's harder for kids growing up right now then it was when I was growing up," Slater said. "They have a lot more issues to deal with. It is up to the parents and to the schools to make the kids more comfortable."

Some of the new security measures likely will need to be adjusted after students are back at their desks.

Souderton, for instance, which has banned backpacks for middle and high schoolers, will hold a student assembly on the first day back to discuss whether students can use mesh or see-through backpacks.

Educators widely agree that all the security measures on the planet won't deal with the root cause of the problem - explosive, violent behavior.

To that end, virtually all school districts in the area say they have adopted peer mediation, counseling, mock courts, conflict resolution or some other of the vast array of techniques available to help students keep the peace.

"We must continue to fight against unsafe behavior on the basis of race, religion, language, gender and disability," Philadelphia school superintendent David Hornbeck said in a recent speech to administrators. In September, the Philadelphia schools will launch a "Zero Tolerance for Intolerance Campaign" designed to promote respect for others.

Sixty miles away, in rural Oxford, superintendent Robert Meckes was thinking along those same lines. Though metal detectors, guards and cameras may be popular, he said, "It's not real clear just how effective some of those things might be. We need to change the culture of school . . . to try to eliminate some of the causes of these problems."

© 1998 Philadelphia Newspapers Inc.