Statistics show schools are still among the safest places for children. But communities and schools across the U.S. are becoming immersed in an ever-widening range of programs aimed at warding off school violence, say observers.

• About 97 percent of the nation's 15,000 school districts get some of the $500 million the Education Department budgets for anti-violence programs -- with about 59 percent of school districts receiving less than $10,000.

• Justice Department statistics show a rise over the past several years in the percentage of students who fear being attacked at school -- although school crime has decreased in the past five years.

• Furthermore, there is only a million-to-one chance of a student being a homicide victim.

• And 90 percent of schools don't have any serious violent crime.

Few of the anti-violence programs have been evaluated, and experts question their effectiveness. Bill Mozeleski, director of the Department of Education's Safe and Drug Free Schools program, says the anti-violence fervor is part of a "culture of fad-ism" out of sync with an actual decline in school violence.

Source: Tamara Henry, "Scared at School," USA Today, April 11, 2000.

For text http://www.usatoday.com/life/lds025.htm