oh I don’t know, we might learn something from the Pearl Mississippi shooting, where an assistant principal was able to retreive his own self defense weapon and SAVE LIVES! DUUUUUUUUUUUUUUH!

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Experts say ’100-per-cent protection’ would require ‘fortresses’
Date: Oct 4, 2006 9:48 AM
PUBLICATION: The Ottawa Citizen
DATE: 2006.10.04
EDITION: Final
SECTION: News
PAGE: A8
SOURCE: Citizen News Services
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
ILLUSTRATION: Colour Photo: Bradley C. Bower, Reuters / Amish
childrenplay at a one-room schoolhouse in Quarryville, Pennsylvania,
yesterday. In these schools, security is a simple lock. It is the only
device that keeps out a potential intruder — and the buildings are
usually unlocked while class is in session.
WORD COUNT: 392

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U.S. president orders meeting on school safety: Experts say
’100-per-cent protection’ would require ‘fortresses’

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WASHINGTON – U.S. authorities yesterday issued new warnings about
security at schools, but said there was little more they could do to
boost safety without turning classrooms into inhospitable fortresses.

President George W. Bush said he had instructed Attorney General Alberto
Gonzales and Education Secretary Margaret Spellings to hold a meeting
with experts to determine how the federal government can help state and
municipal authorities improve school safety.

“Our schoolchildren should never fear (for) their safety when they enter
into a classroom,” Mr. Bush said.

But many officials insisted that apart from barricading children inside
classrooms and turning schools into high-security facilities, there was
little more that could be done to protect pupils.

“You can’t keep all these incidents from happening because schools are
not fortresses,” said Ronald Stephens, executive director of the
National School Safety Center, a California-based firm that provides
advice and training to schools across the country.

“You can’t provide 100-percent protection,” he added.

He recalled that security procedures at U.S. schools had been overhauled
in 1999 following the Columbine school shooting that left 13 people
dead. That incident horrified the country, and prompted many schools to
implement new safety measures, including surveillance cameras, locked
doors, ID badges and having police officers stationed at schools.

Officials in several school districts said they had sent e-mails or
letters to principals and parents urging heightened awareness after the
latest fatal shootings. The killings at the Amish schoolhouse took place
five days after a man took over a classroom in Colorado and killed a
16-year-old girl and himself. On Friday in Wisconsin, a student killed
the principal of a high school.

The West Nickel Mines Amish School remained closed yesterday in the wake
of Monday’s killings, and the prospects of it reopening were uncertain.
The school’s teacher, Emma Zook, 20, declined through her father to
speak to The Associated Press yesterday. She said in yesterday’s
editions of the Lancaster New Era that she would resume teaching.

“Me and the children still need each other,” she told the newspaper. “I
can’t just walk away.”

Some neighbouring Amish schools were also closed yesterday, while others
remained open as usual.

Teacher Naomi Petersheim, who lingered at the Peach Lane School to grade
English papers after her students were dismissed early, said she was
unsure whether the Amish school board would consider extra security
measures, and hadn’t even thought of the possibility that a similar
incident could happen at her school.

“You want to go on with life,” she said.