In his 29 years in public education, Gilbert Reynolds has had his life threatened twice at school. He didn’t give much thought to the threats — the most recent one was made about six years ago.

Today, after school shootings in five states have left 11 students and two teachers dead, Reynolds, now the superintendent of SAD 46 in the Dexter area, said he would take such a threat much more seriously.

He is not alone.

Rather than just hoping such tragedies won’t happen here, many of the state’s school districts are using the summer break to develop plans to combat violence.

“We will do everything we can do to plan for, and hopefully prevent, some of these situations,” Reynolds said.

School officials in SAD 46 have met with local police, ambulance and fire personnel to develop plans to deal with a disaster, whether a shooting or an earthquake, at the district’s schools.

On the first day of school next fall, the district’s adult education coordinator, who is also the high school assistant principal, will meet with staff to talk about emergency procedures.

In addition, the school crisis policy is being reviewed by officials in this district where a 13-year-old pupil was charged with terrorizing with a weapon after making a phone call to a crisis service in May threatening to kill the middle school principal.

The district took some heat from residents who said school officials overreacted to the threat. But schools across the state must take threats, no matter their form, seriously, said Dale Douglass, director of the Maine School Management Association, a lobbying organization for school officials.

“In some cases, you can be accused of overreacting,” Douglass said. “But if you took no action [and a shooting occurred], you would be accused something far more serious.”

Overall, Douglass said, Maine schools are very safe, but it would take only one violent incident to tarnish that image. His organization is sponsoring a workshop this fall in which lawyers from a law firm that represents many of the state’s school districts will tell school personnel what they can do legally to prevent and deal with violent situations. Sessions on school violence will be included in the MSMA’s annual conference this fall.

“People realize they are not being responsible if they say it can’t happen here,” he said.

After one of the out-of-state shootings, Terry McCannell, superintendent of SAD 53 in the Pittsfield area, said a parent called to warn him that Mainers should not be naive about the prospect of a similar incident in our schools.

So McCannell penned a letter to parents of the district’s children, telling them school officials were conerned about national events and were considering measures to improve safety closer to home.

For example, the district’s parent-teacher organization has suggested that gunlocks be sold or given to residents to safeguard guns in homes. The PTO and several civic groups in the Pittsfield area also teamed up to circulate a brochure reminding parents to safeguard weapons and help children develop plans for escaping from unsafe situations.

In his letter, McCannell reminded parents to take note of behavioral changes in their own children or in children with whom they spend a lot of time. He suggested a meeting be held to discuss the problem. The school board supported that idea and has called for a town meeting later this summer. At that meeting, McCannell said, community members will be allowed to vent their frustration while trying to define the problem. Once that is done, he said, the search for solutions can begin.

“I don’t want it to be me. I don’t want it to be one of my schools,” said Bill Braun, superintendent of SAD 48 in the Newport area. Just a few weeks ago, officials found a cache of guns near a school in Hartland, one of the district’s towns. Two teens were arrested.

Last week, SAD 48 administrators got together to talk about limiting access to school buildings. Many buildings have numerous entrances frequently left unlocked. Braun said the district would consider having only one entrance open at each school.

A similar discussion will take place this summer in Bangor.

The Newport district is reworking its written policy for dealing with violence within a school. After the Oklahoma City bombing, Braun said, a section was added detailing how to quarantine a school building and get students out.

In August, eight SAD 48 personnel will attend a conflict management conference offered by the Maine Bureau of Health, the University of Maine School of Law, and the University of Maine’s peace studies program.

Teachers will undergo two days of special training at the start of the school year. They will be taught how to listen to what children are saying and how to take perceived threats seriously.

“We don’t have a choice,” Braun said of all the attention to violence prevention. “It’s part of our jobs to make sure our schools are safe.”

Despite a summer full of violence prevention activities, the state’s superintendents agree that Maine schools are safe.

“I think our schools are safe,” said Bangor Superintendent Jim Doughty. “But they could be made safer [because] the people inside are feeling unsafe.”

Doughty, along with other educators, judicial and law enforcement officials, medical personnel and clergy members, is part of a large committee that has met several times to talk about what the Bangor area can do to prevent the type of violence that has rocked schools in other parts of the country.

In addition, Bangor school administrators are reviewing plans now in place to deal with emergency situations at individual schools. Those plans will be revised if need be.

In August, the administrators will meet with the district’s lawyers to learn what the law does and does not allow in handling students who have threatened violence. This information will be passed along to classroom teachers so they will know how to respond to students who have threatened violence or who may need counseling help.

A legislative committee also is looking at this problem and is expected to issue recommendations on how schools should be allowed to discipline special education students with behavioral and emotional problems. Their recommendations could lead to changes in state law, which now strictly limits what punitive actions school officials may take against such students.