City and schools officials sought to reassure parents and students yesterday after the U.S. Department of Education advised schools across the country to be on the lookout for potential terrorists spying on school buildings.

The warning came in the aftermath of a terrorist siege of a school in Beslan, Russia, which left 340 people dead, including many children. It also coincided with reports that federal law enforcement authorities last month notified six school districts in five states that the U.S. military in Iraq had discovered a compact disk containing crisis-planning information about their schools.

The Associated Press, citing unnamed officials, reported that the information in Iraq contained publicly available information, including an Education Department report informing schools how to prepare and respond to a crisis.

While an official said the military’s find did not necessarily represent any terrorist threat against a school and could have been related to innocent civic planning, FBI special agents in Georgia, Michigan, New Jersey, and two districts in California – the areas mentioned in the downloaded material – visited the schools districts about three weeks ago to inform them, the AP reported yesterday.

The CD contained an Education Department report called “Practical Information on Crisis Planning: A Guide for Schools and Communities,” published in May 2003, as well as photos and floor plans, according to the wire report.

Responding to questions about the nationwide security bulletin, officials with the New York City Police Department and the Department of Homeland Security said there is no specific information that terrorists are targeting schools in New York or elsewhere in America.

The 6-page advisory was prompted by an analysis of potential school safety vulnerabilities conducted by the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security.

“The horror of this attack may have created significant anxiety in our own country among parents, students, faculty, staff, and other community members,” wrote the Deputy Secretary of Education, Eugene Hickok, in a letter to schools and education groups sent on Wednesday.

But there is “no specific information indicating that there is a terrorist threat to any schools or universities in the United States,” he wrote.

He explained that the analysis was prepared “proactively.”

“It was not sent out due to any specific information indicating that there is a terrorist threat to any schools or universities in the United States,” he wrote.

School officials should revise their emergency and crisis plans, maintain strict visitor policies, and consider restricting building access to a single entry point, the advisory states.

Their long-term safety plans should include the creation of “safe zones” within schools for emergency shelter and the covering of exterior windows in “protective coating.”

The advisory also highlighted signs that “could suggest a heightened terrorist or criminal threat. “They include unusual interest in security, entry points, and access controls or barriers such as fences or walls; interest in obtaining site plans for schools, bus routes, attendance lists, and other information about a school, its employees, or students, and unusual behavior such as staring at or quickly looking away from personnel or vehicles entering or leaving designated facilities or parking areas.

The city police commissioner, Raymond Kelly, said such analyses are routine in security planning.

“The New York City Police Department’s Counter Terrorism Bureau and Intelligence Division track terrorist incidents around the world, including the attack on school children in Russia, and incorporate any information we glean from them in our plans to protect the city, including schools. It is something we do every day,” Mr. Kelly said.

A police spokesman, Paul J. Browne, said the police department includes schools in its regular patrols and in its counter-terrorism plans.

“There is, however, no known terrorist threat against New York City schools,” Mr. Browne said.

School Chancellor Joel Klein’s senior counselor for school intervention and development at the city Department of Education, Rose Albanese-De-Pinto, said city schools are “prepared to handle” emergency situations.

Safety agents in all city schools have been trained by and work with the New York Police Department, and there are safety committees in every school that address all issues related to school safety.

The schools have also adopted visitor procedures, entry procedures, and scanning procedures.

“We take the safety and well-being of children in our schools very seriously and have been and will continue working to ensure that we are prepared to deal with emergency situations,” she said.

A spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security, Michelle Petrovich, said the report was a routine “information bulletin,” in which the department regularly shares “lessons learned” and advises the public on general protective measures.

“One of the things that we wanted to do is take a look at the situation that occurred in Beslan and see if we could learn anything from that,” she said.

There was “no specific or credible threat to any sort of institution in the United States that prompted the report,” she said.

The bulletin went out Wednesday to educators and local law enforcement and homeland security officials nationwide.

A Chechen rebel has taken responsibility for the attack, as well as for downing two Russian airplanes and bombing a Moscow subway.

The advisory said the group does not appear to have any plans to attack sites in America.

“The FBI and DHS are currently unaware of any specific, credible information indicating a terrorist threat to public or private schools, universities, or colleges in the United States. The FBI and DHS have told us that there is no imminent threat to U.S. schools and that the group that conducted the operation in Russia has never attacked or threatened to attack U.S. interests. However, in an abundance of caution, the Department of Education and our federal law enforcement partners are providing state and local law enforcement officials and educators with an analysis of some of the important lessons learned about the recent incident in Beslan, Russia,” he wrote.