Lessons from Columbine: Schools, districts refining efforts to prevent or deal with deadly attacks

Two teens with guns, bombs and a diabolical plan.

Dead: 12 students and one teacher. Twenty-three others wounded.

Some find it difficult to believe it has been 10 years since the Columbine High School killings April 20, 1999.

The tragedy prompted schools to address myriad issues from bullying to violent video games. Regardless of what really caused Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris to open fire on their classmates before shooting themselves, educators agree Columbine was a wake-up call for student safety.

Utah schools have beefed up security measures since the incident a decade ago near Littleton, Colo. Some ideas have been tried and discarded. Other methods — both proactive and reactive — have been built upon and improved.

"We pray to God it never happens. But if it does, we're ready," said Ogden School District spokeswoman Donna Corby.

Some of the new safety measures school districts have implemented include lockdown drills, security cameras, school resource officers, tip hotlines, locking outside doors to visitors and automated phone messages to parents.

Districts are also doing solely preventive actions such as anti-violence assemblies and bullying programs. In January, the state mandated an increase in school guidance counselors.

Wake-up call

While schools have made great strides, they may not be as vigilant as they were in the years immediately following the Columbine shootings, says Tami Larsen, president of the Utah School Counselor Association and a counselor at Ben Lomond High School in Ogden.

It's an out-of-sight out-of-mind thing, Larsen said. "We remember it but not daily," she said. "It's like 9/11. It doesn't face us every day. Columbine has faded from the memory of a lot of schools."

Whitney Thompson, 16, a sophomore at American Fork High School, says she believes people can be lulled into a false sense of "Happy Valley" safety. But her high school is in a suburban middle-class area just like Columbine. "I don't think anything bad will happen at our school," she said. "But you never know."

At times, educators are reminded of just how precarious life is when something as simple as a heavy snowfall in Alpine School District turns into an icy disaster.