Teachers Get Cell Phones as Police Hotline : Schools: After Colorado massacre, nearly 1,000 units will go to public high schools in the county, a direct link to dispatchers.

To improve communication during violent school incidents like April’s mass shooting in Littleton, Colo., police and school administrators on Thursday began delivering thousands of cellular phones to high school teachers throughout Orange County and elsewhere.

Officials said the wireless phones would allow educators in remote parts of schools to quickly alert law enforcement dispatchers to emergencies, enabling police to greatly speed response to crimes on campus.

The approach--one of the most significant moves yet by law enforcement after a recent rash of school shootings around the country--is part of a statewide initiative that will see 1,000 public high schools receive donated phones.

Acknowledging that such violent incidents are rare, officials said the phones will provide students extra protection.

“We believe in law enforcement that the kids should be safe in school,” Orange County Sheriff Mike Carona told students at Trabuco Hills High School, the first local school to receive the phones. “This is one step along the way to giving you a safe environment so that you can flourish.”

Nearly 1,000 phones will be handed out at the county’s 94 public high schools. Police in Los Angeles County will spend the next few weeks distributing nearly 3,000 phones to 381 public schools. Authorities will decide later whether to expand the program to include elementary and junior high schools.

Some teachers welcomed the new equipment. “If something happens here, in the gymnasium or out in the football field, you need someone here right now,” said Mike Rico, who teaches automotives at Trabuco Hills High. “You don’t have time to run to a phone.”

The phone program was born just days after two Colorado students killed 12 classmates and a teacher before turning their weapons on themselves. California Gov. Gray Davis convened a meeting of police and education officials to discuss security on campus and learned that many of them believed that local schools were as ill-prepared for such a tragedy as Columbine High School.

AirTouch Cellular promised to donate 10,000 phones and three years’ worth of air time, at an estimated cost to the company of $7 million.

The phones have been modified for school use. Calls to police on a regular cellular phone are routed to the California Highway Patrol rather than the nearest police agency. But the program’s donated phones will allow teachers to contact local police at the touch of just two buttons.

The phones cannot be used to dial any other numbers, however, and that has some teachers concerned.

George Triplett, president of the Anaheim Secondary Teachers Assn., asked why the use of the phones would be limited and why the business community had waited until a tragedy occurred until making a donation.

“It’s a step in the right direction, but it’s almost too little too late,” he said. “The [phones] are not fully capable, and they should have been out there a long time. They could have done this five years ago, easily.”

Across the state, teachers have lobbied legislators to provide funding to equip all classrooms with phones so teachers can call parents and administrators as well as police.

At least half of Orange County’s classrooms still lack phones, though many are becoming equipped as districts hurry to expand access to the Internet, said Bill Habermehl, associate superintendent of the county’s Department of Education.

In the Los Angeles Unified School District, an estimated 10% of classrooms have phone lines, and many of those cannot be used to dial outside school.

Teachers and students at Trabuco Hills High School welcomed the donation of cell phones.

Raquel Barriga, 17, said she already feels safe at school but that the addition of the cell phones can only reinforce security.

“It tells me there’s a lot of violence around,” she said.