PONTIAC - Dozens of parents and friends typed messages into their cell phones in hopes of reaching students locked in the school building just a few hundred feet away.

The building was locked down for 3½ hours after reports had circulated that someone had brought guns into the school. About 100 people gathered outside as police searched the building.

Before the Aug. 28 lockdown, Pontiac Township High School started a policy that cell phones had to be kept inside lockers and turned off. But the policy was aggressively enforced immediately after the school shutdown when people outside the school readily acknowledged they were exchanging text messages with their sons, daughters and friends inside.

"We have our policy in force as far as the cell phones are to be in lockers and turned off," PTHS Principal Jon Kilgore said recently, adding he and teachers weren't going to pat down students.

The school confiscated several phones the day after the lockdown, Kilgore said. While he said he understood the communication during the lockdown gave comfort to some parents, the risk of too much or wrong information leaking out is too great to justify allowing use of the phones.

Kenneth Trump, president of the Cleveland-based National School Safety and Security Services, said he is personally against allowing cell phones in schools.

"There's a difference between feeling safer and being safer," Trump said. "And students on cell phones during an emergency can create a less safe situation."

With the ever-expanding technology available to students today, and increased use of online news sites for breaking news, a mix of rumors and accurate information is going out to the public almost instantly, Trump said. And school administrators are complaining that parents are flocking to schools in the middle of emergencies, often impeding the process of defusing the crisis.

Trump said it's common that the weakest areas of school administrators' plans during an emergency are those dealing with communication and coordination with media and the public - the "crisis after the crisis," as he calls it.

Central Illinois school administrators said they, too, are looking to advances in technology to do a more effective job of notifying families and the public during such emergencies, ranging from mass e-mail and phone call systems to in-person announcements through a spokesman.

Recently, Normal-based Unit 5 started paying for a service that can, in an emergency, deliver a pre-recorded message through 6,000 calls or e-mails every minute. Superintendent Gary Niehaus said the district has about 12,500 students, and the service will cost about $3 per student annually.

Normal Assistant Police Chief Rick Bleichner said his department would take the lead in notifying the public if there was crime or immediate emergency taking place at a school, but the school district usually will take the lead in other situations.

Tri-Valley Superintendent Bradley Cox said his schools have a mass e-mail list and notification on the school's Web site for emergencies, whether related to weather or a threat. And Tri-Valley has a dedicated generator that guarantees the message will go out if the power is out, he said.

During a lockdown in September, when an ammunition clip was found on a school bus, Tri-Valley updated information on its Web site that contained information that could be released at the time, Cox said. Feedback from the community related to the notification system has been largely positive, he said.

"Of course, you will always have people who want to know more sooner than you can tell them," Cox said. "But at the end of the day, especially in an emergency situation, our main concern isn't making sure 100 percent of our parents are happy, but making sure 100 percent of our students are safe."

District 87 Superintendent Robert Nielsen said the first priority in emergencies is to send messages internally so everyone inside the building knows what to do. Those messages can go out by public address or e-mail, he said.

But the specific reaction to an emergency is situational, he said.

"I wish there was an easy answer for you," Nielsen said. "Each situation would be evaluated on its own communication needs."

District 87's Web site is used to relay information, as is a telephone message system that has been in place for the last three or four years, Nielsen said. Working with news media plays a role in getting the message out, too, he said.

"We will be very forthcoming with information to the media because we understand not knowing creates anxiety among parents and loved ones that are outside," Nielsen said.

District 87 administrators try to quickly come forward with information to let people in the community know what is happening and how they should respond, Nielsen said.

Pontiac's superintendent is the school's designated spokesman, Kilgore said, and he and the chief of police decide what information is given to the public and news media.

Since the PTHS lockdown, the school has increased internal communication through use of relatively old technology: Physical education teachers, secretaries and maintenance personnel carry two-way radios while outside the building.

Parental and student convenience puts pressure on school officials to allow cell phones, but more school administrators are realizing phones are used to cheat, take pictures in locker rooms for posting online and to accelerate rumors that lead to parents flocking to schools in emergencies, Trump said.

As is the case with District 87, Unit 5 and other area districts, many school districts are capable of mass-notification of parents from within their own technology departments or through hosted services. And reverse-911 systems are available to law enforcement in some counties.

Parents should be told ahead of time where they can find updated information, such as on a Web site, and how they will be notified directly, including methods such as text messaging or by phone.

"If I'm a parent, I would rather get the same information three times from three different sources than get nothing," Trump said.

As a father, Trump said he wants to know his children are out of harm's way. But when it comes to cellular phone access, there is "a lot more to it than what feels good and what sounds good on the surface."

The flocking causes a new set of problems for police and school administrators and can delay reuniting students and parents, Trump said. If police have to evacuate a school, they now have to control crowds of parents in addition to trying to get people out of the school.

Bleichner agreed with Trump that crowds gathering at a school could delay the release of students, as resources might have to be transferred to crowd and traffic control instead of emergency response.

"It may delay it slightly, but it depends, he said.

Bleichner said the overuse of cell phones by students could cause problems for emergency responders who rely on the same network. "If you've got 1,800 kids and they're all dialing their cell phones at one time, only so many signals can go out at one time," he said.

"You have to have accurate, factual information to communicate," Trump said. "When you have the facts, you have to release those as reasonably soon as possible, and you have to have redundancy in communications."