After Littleton, Hard to Overreact

The tragic shootings in Littleton, Colo., have spread waves of fear across the country. Capistrano Valley High School was one school to experience the concern. School officials and parents responded admirably.

A wave of rumors that Capistrano Valley would be the target of violence prompted Principal Dan Burch to call in deputies from the Orange County Sheriff’s Department to search lockers and provide concrete evidence of increased security.

Fortunately, there were no incidents. But that did not mean school officials overreacted. The perception of threat was so high that officials had no choice but to order the increased security. Even if extra measures did not detect danger or foil plots, at least they gave students a feeling of safety. That feeling is needed after Littleton.

Capistrano Valley High had been the subject of rumors that the school was on an Internet list of terrorist targets, along with Littleton and some other campuses.

School officials said the rumor was false. Still, it was enough to push parents into telephoning each other and to cause students to worry. Some parents held their children out of school.

Littleton was horrible enough. But the fear of campus violence was compounded by arrests of students across the country and in Canada for everything from a fatal attack on a classmate to threats to blow up schools and murder teachers or fellow students.

Belligerent statements that might be shrugged off at other times now are taken seriously, just in case.

That’s about all anyone can do these days. Students need to understand that everyone is on heightened alert; they have to be careful what they say.

Burch correctly let students at Capistrano Valley High know what was going on. He gave them memos to alert them to the locker searches and the stationing of school personnel at all entrances to the building.

Extraordinary times require extraordinary measures. In time, it is hoped, the rumors will end and the actual outbreaks of violence will cease. Experts say school violence has decreased in the past decade. That’s heartening. But incidents like Littleton test the resourcefulness of school officials everywhere.