Parents Not Taking Any Chances : Crime: Many more are accompanying their children to and from McKinley Elementary School in North Park in the wake of a fourth-grade girl’s death.

They arrive about 2 p.m., a wave of parents emerging from around the street corners near McKinley Elementary School.

By the time the children come streaming out of their classrooms to the front of the North Park campus, the area is full of adults trying to pick out their children from the crowd. Some shout out names, others wave their hands over their heads.

McKinley Principal Barbara Bethel estimates that at least 50% more parents have been accompanying their children to and from school since Amanda Leigh Gaeke disappeared Oct. 3. The body of the McKinley fourth-grader was found a week ago in a canyon just down the street from the school on Felton Street.

Amanda was last seen on the evening of her disappearance with a man in a truck at the school.

Now “almost every child comes to school or leaves with an adult,” Bethel said.

John Maza said he or his wife pick up their 6-year-old son, Brandon, every day. They always have--but Maza says he has noticed many more parents doing the same recently.

“I’ve noticed a big change since Amanda disappeared,” he said. “This place is packed. It’s unfortunate that this had to happen before people do anything about it.”

The Mazas have made their own routine even stricter.

“I get here early just because this happened,” Maza said, adding that he is “a little bit more paranoid now.”

Maza used to tell Brandon to wait by the McKinley Elementary sign in front of the school until he or his wife arrived.

“ ‘You stay behind the gate,’ I tell him now,” Maza said.

Alice Sutton and her son, Richard Kuster, 9, ride their bikes to and from school each day. Richard was in Amanda’s class.

“I make sure he gets inside the gate before I leave,” Sutton said.

The fear created by Amanda’s death prompted school officials to create a new policy for their annual Halloween carnival, chairwoman Ina Lively said. Children will not be allowed to leave the gated school grounds unless they are accompanied by an adult whom they can clearly identify.

“A parent cannot come up to the curb and honk, because they are not going to get a child,” said Lively, whose grandchildren attend the school.

In addition, orange-vested students from St. Augustine’s High School will patrol the school grounds.

The day after Amanda’s body was found, the San Diego Police Department sent Officer Rolanda Ricardez to McKinley to act as a visible sign to students, parents and community members that the police are getting involved. Ricardez, along with school crisis counselors, talked to dozens of students and parents about safety precautions during the four days after the discovery. She played tetherball and basketball with the kids, walked the campus boundaries and answered children’s questions about Amanda’s death.

“The kids are concerned about Amanda,” Ricardez said, and have asked her “really graphic” questions about her death.

“They ask how did she die, what killed her,” Ricardez said. “Some of them have asked me if she was sad before she died. Another boy asked if she was scared before she died.”

Ricardez told the children how to avoid strangers.

“I tell them strangers don’t necessarily have to be big, stinky men that look like bums. They could be anybody . . . ladies, teen-agers,” she said.

Parents want to know what kind of weapon they can carry. One woman showed Ricardez a can of tear gas and asked her where she could take classes.

“I’ve noticed a lot more big dogs being walked to and from school. I counted at least nine today,” Ricardez said Friday. “They want protection. Anything they can feel comfortable with.”

Ricardez, who has spoken to hundreds of children in San Diego about safety, said children are approached by strangers frequently.

“It happens all the time,” she said. “It may not be reported. The kids may not know what to do. Once they feel that they are safe, they may not do anything. As the Police Department, we have to patrol to find people causing the problem.”

Safety has also been a concern for officials and parents at Jackson Elementary School, where Oct. 16 an 8-year-old girl and her 5-year-old brother reported to school officials that a man in a stocking mask grabbed at them from a car as they were walking to school.

As the children walked on the south side of El Cajon Boulevard, the man drove alongside them, heading west in the eastbound lane with two wheels up on the sidewalk. The man grabbed at the children, and the girl screamed and ran with her brother to school.

Just two weeks earlier, the school had held a safety assembly to teach children what to do in such a situation.

Rodger Cunningham, principal of the school at 4365 54th St., said students are “well-versed on what they should do when approached by strangers.”

The school holds monthly safety assemblies each month because of the rapid growth of the student population. About 150 new students enroll each year, and total enrollment is expected to reach almost 1,200 by May, 1992, he said.

Cunningham said he has not noticed an increase in the number of parents accompanying children to school. Most students walk, and younger children are often with parents or are driven to school. The only bus that stops at the school transports disabled students.

“Many, many will accompany their children because the school is located on two well-traveled streets,” Cunningham said.

But the school sent a memo to parents Thursday describing the incident, reassuring them that the school is taking precautions and encouraging them to talk to their children about safety procedures.

San Diego Police Sgt. Ron Brown, supervisor of the city’s school safety unit, which covers schools from Solana Beach to the Mexican border, said the department has been getting a lot of requests for safety demonstrations since Amanda’s death.

“I’m glad,” Brown said. “Any time we can bring attention to safety, it’s good.”