So, even though Jefferson County school officials have become more sensitive to kids' mental states since Harris -- who was taking medication for psychiatric problems -- and his buddy, Dylan Klebold, killed 13 people last month, they remain hamstrung about arranging treatment.

"We have no place to go with them," said Clark Bencomo, a counselor at Green Mountain High School. "All we can do is suspend or expel."

"We are oftentimes reduced to putting a kid in a place where they're safe, but it's not the right program," added Kay Cessna, intervention services director for Jefferson County schools.

"There are not enough places."

Lisa Rose has begged for help for her son from schools across the country. This past year, when she moved to Jefferson County, she tried there too.

Rose's 16-year-old son was in a special education program, but it wasn't helping. Two months before Columbine, she told the school he was suicidal. She says nothing was done.

"They don't have the time, the manpower, and they don't get it," she said.

After Columbine, everything changed. Her son turned delusional, thinking a friend had been killed in the shooting. His therapist placed him in a psychiatric hospital for three days.

Now, Rose says, the school is finally taking his mental health seriously. She has a meeting scheduled that she hopes will result in long-term day treatment.

"It's really sad that it took two kids going out and blowing up a school for them to listen," she said.

Her son's private insurance was little help. It paid for only the three days in the psychiatric hospital and four days of day treatment.

While Colorado law says his clinical depression should be treated as thoroughly as any other disease, his health insurance came through an employer with a Texas-based insurance policy. So Colorado law does not apply.

State insurance division spokeswoman Nancy Ryan confirmed that many Coloradans are not covered by the state's mental illness parity law for this reason.

"Unfortunately, most people don't find that out until they need it," she said.

The schools' problems start with identifying dangerous kids.

Colorado's juvenile secrecy law, meant to protect children, prohibits law enforcement from alerting schools about kids in trouble with the law unless they have been convicted.

The Jefferson County Education Association was so alarmed by this lack of communication that it added to this year's union contract "a teacher's right to know when he or she has a potentially dangerous student in the classroom," said union spokesman Dexter Meyer.

But that contract clause will have little effect unless the state law changes, he said.

If the schools had more counselors -- or even more adults -- they'd be more likely to catch troubled kids, said Ray Curtis of the Forest Heights treatment program in Evergreen.

Hiring more staff would "raise the odds that someone is going to know these kids," he said.

The Jeffco schools were planning to cut counseling staff in middle schools next year. That decision changed after Columbine. But there's still a serious shortage.

High schools with 1,800 students may have five counselors, who spend much of their time on college preparation and scheduling.

Jeffco high schools each have a social worker or a psychologist, but they are legally required to spend 80 percent of their time on special education assessments, leaving 20 percent for kids with mental or emotional disturbances.

"A few years ago, we had a psychologist reprimanded for taking time to help a kid who was not on her list" of special education students, union spokesman Meyer said.

Teachers often file formal requests for help for a particular child, and as far as they know, nothing is done, Meyer said.

The new union contract requires the district to tell teachers what happened to their referral.

Some parents and teachers said school districts won't recommend mental health care for fear the special education laws will force them to pay for it.

"We have to do it in a vague way, saying, 'That's up to you,"' said Bencomo, the Green Mountain counselor.

"If we come out and say, 'We as a school district are recommending you get help for your child,' they can pursue it legally and the school district has to pay those bills."

Cessna, the district's intervention services director, denied having such a policy. But she said that telling parents their child needs a psychiatrist is very difficult.

"In our culture, it's more acceptable to have physical than mental problems," she said.

If the mental problem interferes with the child's ability to learn, then the district pays to place the student in special education classes, Cessna said.

But if the mental problems do not interfere with the child's schooling -- as was the case with Harris -- any mental health care is up to the parents, Cessna said.

Then, parents often discover they have inadequate health insurance for mental illness.

Poor parents must negotiate the state's managed care programs for mental health treatment, which have been under fire for allegedly refusing needed care.

Kids who need mental health care but aren't poor enough for Medicaid may be out of luck. State mental health director Tom Barrett says they may number 10,000.

"Maybe this is too radical, but we need (a law) to be able to call and say this child needs to be examined by a psychiatric clinic to determine if he needs help," Bencomo said.

Even when the district recognizes a desperate need, there's not enough funding.

Cessna says her staff does "triage," giving its limited help where it can do the most good.

The Jeffco district has a day treatment program, providing a combination of therapy and schooling for the most seriously mentally ill children. But there's room for about 85 of the district's 89,000 students.

"Do we have more kids who need that?" said Cessna. "Absolutely."

The Jefferson County district has placed only 13 children in outside treatment programs with its own money this year.

Another 157 are in treatment under court order in abuse and delinquency cases, and the district pays only their educational costs.

Colorado has a law saying the state will cover 80 percent of special education costs, but the legislature actually funds only 20 percent, Meyer said.

The bottom line is there is not enough money for mental health care in our society, and the schools are being asked to pick up the slack, says Denver school psychologist Patricia Martens.

"I've known boys as disturbed as this," she said of the Columbine shooters.

The Denver schools are putting more money into security, including guards and cameras, rather than mental health, she said. "What are our priorities? To prevent these things from happening? Or to react once they happen?"