News and Commentary

Saturday, October 14, 2006

Texas School Tells Classes to Fight Back


Texas School Tells Classes to Fight Back

By JEFF CARLTON
Associated Press Writer
Oct 13, 2:42 PM EDT

BURLESON, Texas (AP) -- Youngsters in a suburban Fort Worth school district are being taught not to sit there like good boys and girls withtheir hands folded if a gunman invades the classroom, but to rush him and hit him with everything they got - books, pencils, legs and arms.

"Getting under desks and praying for rescue from professionals is not a recipe for success," said Robin Browne, a major in the British Army reserve and an instructor for Response Options, the company providing the training to the Burleson schools.

That kind of fight-back advice is all but unheard of among schools, and some fear it will get children killed.

But school officials in Burleson said they are drawing on the lessons learned from a string of disasters such as Columbine in 1999 and the Amish schoolhouse attack in Pennsylvania last week.

The school system in this working-class suburb of about 26,000 is believed to be the first in the nation to train all its teachers and students to fight back, Browne said.
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The rest of the story is here.