Twice in the past month, unspeakable acts have occurred inside American schools. Just as the nation was recovering from a bizarre shooting in Colorado, another madman struck in Pennsylvania, his victims the children of a community that’s almost never harmed another soul in anger.

Following the Amish school killings, Maine education officials, law enforcement and the governor urged immediate review of mandatory school crisis plans and security procedures. Unfortunately, it appears crisis management is a course some school districts are on the verge of failing.

Approximately 40 percent of Maine’s 177 school districts lack a crisis plan, according to the state Department of Education. Commissioner Susan Gendron called this number troubling – a drastic understatement – and vowed to provide technical assistance to schools in drafting crisis protocols.

For schools to lack crisis plans today, more than seven years after the Columbine shootings, is inexcusable. According to Gendron, most of the nonconforming schools are small and rural, and believe their remoteness and sparse student population will insulate them from violence.

“I hope that what happened this week will serve as a wake-up call,” Gendron told the Capital News Service. The commissioner is wrong. The wake-up call came years ago; the recent tragedies should serve as a klaxon informing school administrators that violence can, and does, happen anywhere.

School violence, starting with Columbine, changed the education landscape forever. The state of Maine, for example, has instituted security regulations into new school construction to put student safety squarely into the architecture of new school buildings.

Dale Doughty, a former superintendent in Farmington, is one of two former administrators who advise the state on school construction. New schools in Maine, he said, are now required to consider everything from entrance foyers to landscaping in relation to security as part of the new requirements.

Yet Maine’s older schools, built during a different, safer era, remain ill-equipped against the horrific scenarios that can occur. Leon Levesque, the superintendent of Lewiston schools, said this week that some of the district’s oldest buildings are more than 70 years old, and security is a problem.

“We do the best with what we have,” he said.

Levesque’s words should resonate with the districts without crisis plans. Until all Maine schools are constructed as securely as possible, an up-to-date crisis management plan is the best available defense against a violent act.

There’s no excuse, after all these years of debate and tragedy, for any school to lack one.