US schools arm students and teachers with buckets of rocks to protect against shooters

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Students in one US school district are being armed with rocks to defend themselves during a mass shooting.

Five-gallon buckets of river stone have been placed in 200 classrooms across the Blue Mountain School District in Pennsylvania.

“If an armed intruder attempts to gain entrance, they will face a classroom full of students armed with rocks, and they will be stoned,” said superintendent David Helsel.

“We didn’t want our students to be helpless victims,” Dr Helsel added. “River stones were my idea. I thought they would be more effective than throwing books or book bags or staplers.”

Dr Helsel revealed the plan while speaking on school safety to the education committee at the Pennsylvania House of Representatives.

He claimed that publicising the buckets of rocks would also act as a deterrent, adding: “We chose to make it well known about the river stone because we want, if it’s an existing student, to be aware that the chances are that they are going to be stoned severely if they try to do anything.”

Asked whether students were being given slingshots to fire the rocks, Dr Helsel replied: “No. We have some people who have some pretty good arms. They can chuck a rock pretty fast.”

The superintendent also claimed that rocks were preferable to golf balls, adding: “Golf balls bounce around, and I was afraid of collateral damage with our kids, so I thought the rocks won’t bounce.

“So actually, it was pretty easy. We just had a dump truck full, go over to a landscaper and get river stone. And they’re nice, they’re smooth, and you can really hurtle them pretty quickly, and hard.”

State Representative Hal English told him: “I commend your practical thinking.”

Another representative, Mark Gillen, asked to be able to observe students and staff being trained in river stone throwing.

The idea has since attracted widespread criticism in the wake of the Florida school shooting which claimed 17 lives last month.

Kenneth Trump, president of security consulting firm National School Safety and Security Services, told the Associated Press it was “illogical and irrational” and could possibly cost lives.

Others used the story to support calls for teachers to be armed with guns and trained to kill school shooters.

But one school senior told reporters he supported the plan and parent Dori Bornstein told WNEP-TV: “At this point, we have to get creative, we have to protect our kids first and foremost.”

Mr Helsel said the rocks – which are kept in classroom cupboards – were just one part of an armed intruder defence plan codenamed “Alice”, which stands for Alert, Lockdown, Inform, Counter and Evacuate.

The district currently has one armed member of staff but has identified others for training.

“They are currently maintenance and technology support, the people that go around and fix the students and teachers’ computers,” Dr Helsel told the education committee.

The Blue Mountain School District covers five schools and a virtual academy in Schuylkill County with more than 2,500 pupils.