WASHINGTON (AP) - Barely one of every 100 murders of school-age Americans takes place at school, but when other violent crimes like rapes and muggings are included, nearly a third of the violence involving teen-agers is occurring in schools.

Given the stark disparity, the people who monitor school violence worry that the focus on school shootings drains money from programs to counter the much greater threat of one-on-one assault.

They cite President Bush's proposed redirecting of federal police funds to school security guards; the recent rash of school boards mandating "lockdown" drills; the proliferation of bar-coded ID badges.

"The trauma of school shootings is clear, but you can't ignore the other things that go on in schools - fighting, theft, harassment, bullying," says Bill Modzeleski, the top school safety official at the Education Department. "If you do, you're taking your eye off the ball."

He offers the raw numbers in the most recent department report, covering the school year 1997-98: 35, or 1.3 percent, of 2,752 murders of youths ages 5 through 19 took place in schools; in the same period, schools were the setting for 252,700, or 31 percent, of 802,900 serious violent crimes against students aged 12-18.

The Education Department notes that the incidence of violence has been dropping steadily since 1995-96, when a record 49 deaths were reported.

The department classifies rape, sexual assault, robbery and aggravated assault as serious violent crimes. Proportionally, nine of every 1,000 students were the victim of a serious violent crime during the 1997-98 school year.

A comparison of school and workplace violence underscores Modzeleski's point that the greater schoolyard risk is in "regular" violence than in shootings.

The Labor Department lists 22,382 nonfatal incidents of violence in the workplace for 1998, less than a tenth of the number experienced in schools.

On the other hand, there were 709 workplace homicides - most carried out during robberies and other crimes - compared with the 35 school shootings in that period.

Modzeleski worries that school boards that have has instituted "lockdown" drills, the exercises that send kids scampering into darkened rooms, use up limited money and address the symptoms instead of the cure.

"We want schools to take a comprehensive approach to crime prevention," Modzeleski said, listing "sound discipline policies, mentoring programs, forging connections between adults and students."

According to some educators, "sound discipline" means getting tough with violence as soon as it emerges, no matter how benign the expression.

Arnold Goldstein, who heads Syracuse University's Center for Research on Aggression, has counseled a zero-tolerance policy: discipline students with detentions and suspensions when the aggression emerges.

"Even the low-level stuff of bullying, cursing, if it's ignored, it's likely to escalate," he said. "Kids have to learn behavior has consequences."

Goldstein, whose role-playing workshops have been used in hundreds of American schools, says the "lockdowns" worry him.

"We don't consider the downside, what are the psychological effects of sending children into darkened rooms?" he said. "Does it make you feel more secure?"

Such concerns are overblown, according to Kenneth Trump, whose company, National School Safety and Security Services, trains schools in running the drills.

"It's like a reverse fire drill, instead of evacuating, the kids stay inside," he said. "I ask these ivory tower types, do kids come home after fire drills fearing their schools will burn down?"

Trump, who says business is booming, acknowledges that school shooting rates are tiny compared with assault - but says that's no reason not to worry.

"Schools have historically dealt with safety, discipline, climate intervention, prevention programs, parental support - appropriately, to be sure - but they have neglected crisis preparedness."

He notes that assaults on schools that end without casualties do not get national attention, but still underscore the necessity of drills.

Last month in San Antonio, elementary schoolchildren used their "lockdown" training to hide from a gunman who stumbled into the school after allegedly shooting his wife and a policeman at his home. They emerged unharmed.

"We have to have some reasonable security measures in schools, just as we do in banks in grocery stores," he said. "We don't complain about security at Disneyland, and it's filled with kids."

Copyright 2001 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.