Prompted by three deadly schoolhouse shootings this month, President Bush is hosting a school violence summit today in Chevy Chase and lawmakers are considering ways to make schools safer, including one Maryland state senator who has proposed allowing teachers and principals to carry guns.

But area experts pointed out that schools are safer than they were 20 years ago and warn against overreacting to the horrific but isolated incidents. In Pennsylvania, a gunman killed himself and five girls at an Amish schoolhouse; in Wisconsin, a student shot and killed his principal; and in Colorado, a man took six girls hostage before fatally shooting one girl and killing himself. Closer to home, in the District, a 17-year-old was charged with shooting a student outside Cardozo Senior High School last month in what detectives said was a dispute between two groups.