For the third time in five days, gun violence has devastated an American school community. Monday, three girls were killed execution style and seven others wounded in a siege in a one-room schoolhouse in Amish country in rural Pennsylvania. The gunman then took his own life.

Last week, a gunman took six students hostage at Platte Canyon High School in Bailey, Colo. — sexually assaulting some of them — before killing one girl and himself. Two days later, a principal in Wisconsin was shot to death by a 15-year-old who had been disciplined for throwing a stapler at a teacher's head.

Suddenly, the assurances we as parents give our children regarding their safety at school are probably beginning to sound a bit absurd.

We all have our stock lines.

"You're actually safer at school than you are outside of school."

"This is a safe community. You'll be fine."

"We know your principal, teachers and school secretaries are looking out for you."

"We wouldn't send you to school unless we knew it was safe."

In the aftermath of these disturbing events, what do we tell our children now? Will they believe us?

What do we tell them after young Amish girls were lined up against a chalkboard, their feet were bound with wire and plastic ties, and they were shot execution style by a 32-year-old man who lived in the area? The gunman, milk-truck driver Charles Carl Roberts IV, then killed himself. Roberts left a suicide note saying he was seeking revenge for something that happened 20 years ago, State Police Commander Jeffrey Miller said at a news conference.

As much as we would like to protect our children from images of school violence, today's children are more plugged in than ever. Even if parents have a strict policy of turning off the radio and TV when there has been a school shooting, others aren't so strident. A child's peers will have access to this information, and word will spread like wildfire. Worse yet, there will be no opportunity for parents to help children understand the day's events or to place these events in the proper context. Parents need to initiate these conversations.

Public schools are public buildings, so it is not reasonable to expect that they can be cordoned off at the start of each school day. It's unrealistic that every school have an armed peace officer on the premises. Utah simply hasn't the resources or, gratefully, a demonstrated need.

Seemingly, though, there's got to be something better to do than wring our hands and shake our heads when the unthinkable happens. Particularly when the unthinkable seems to be happening repeatedly.

In spite of what we've seen on television and read in newspapers the past five days, the latest available state and national statistics tell us that schools are safe places. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, 32 people died nationwide in school-associated violence between July 1, 1999, and June 30, 2000. That accounts for 1 percent of deaths for all school-age children in that time frame.