"....School Used To Be A Place To Shoot For The Stars......"

Getting tougher to be a teacher.

Truth told, it was never the easiest of occupations, this noble quest to bring young people to some level of knowledge and ability, all the while having to struggle against not only the bureaucracy that inevitably thwarts and inhibits progress in the name of organization but the culture that, for each generation, distracts, even discourages, any allegiance to whatever manifesto the applicable "establishment" is offering up.

And now, of course, you have to factor in the occasional to semi-often prowling of the school hallways by some psychologically malformed malcontent who has decided to depart this cold cruel world but not before inflicting as much as pain as possible with the assistance of a few well thought out weapons of one effective caliber or another, a couple of hundred, or thousand, rounds of flesh tearing ammunition, the 2nd Amendment and, of course, that vanguard of our Constitutional rights, the NRA.

It's not all gloom and doom news, though.

Still a little learning going on in our institutions of learning.

Some Shakespeare.

And a little Einstein, too.

That's all just ahead.

First, though, here, now, the news...






MUSCATINE, Iowa — It’s the last thing a teacher wants to have to think about: what to do in case a shooter is in the building.

Mass shootings in the past year like Sandy Hook, and the one at an Oregon high school on Tuesday, have led a few Iowa middle school teachers to take action, and invent a device that will protect their classrooms.

“The Sleeve” is a 12-gauge carbon steel case that fits around the door’s closer arm, securing the door from the inside. The Sleeve can withstand more than 550 foot-pounds of force, making it nearly impossible to open from the outside.

Teacher Daniel Nitzel got the idea from the school’s active shooter training.

“We were instructed to tie a belt or a cord around the closer arm. It seemed like a logical way to secure a door without having to go into the hallway, [but] it took us a long time to get a cord, stand on a chair, and tie a knot, which could potentially be the most important tie of your life.” said Nitzel.

“I can tell you in our training, all five rooms that the teachers were trained in; the doors were breached, the cords were ripped, and the officer who was portraying the active shooter came in and killed all of us,” Nitzel said.

That’s when Nitzel and his colleagues formed the company, Fighting Chance Solutions, and began designing blueprints for The Sleeve. He said it’s been ten months in the making, but they finally have it ready and waiting for patent.

“We look at it as a cheap insurance policy. If you have someone out in the hallway, and you have an active situation, a dangerous situation unfolding and [don't] want to go out into the hallway and lock your door, we want to provide you with a way to close that door,” said Nitzel.

The Sleeve is lightweight and compact, so it can be quickly applied and removed from the door’s opening mechanism in case of an emergency. It also allows the teachers to keep the door closed without having to enter the hallway to lock it from the outside, keeping them safe from harm.

“I think it’s a great product. It’s going to buy kids and teachers time for shootings,” said Muscatine Police Chief Brett Talkington. “These shooters [are] going to be pulling on the door. If they can’t get in, they’re going to move on.”

The Sleeve still awaits patent, but a local community college is fitting buildings across campus with the device.




Meanwhile, a little further down Resilience Road....




In the wake of dozens of school shootings over the last year and a half, many schools and parents have decided to turn to bulletproof school supplies in order to save children from unexpected disasters, most recently embracing beefed-up blankets.

According to the Huffington Post, an item called the Bodyguard Blanket has not even been available to purchase for two weeks, but sales for ProTecht’s product are incredibly strong. In fact, the company’s managing partner, Stan Schone, stated the safety device has already “far exceeded our wildest expectations.”

"We have been contacted by several private and public schools that have shown great interest and by many concerned parents wanting to purchase them as well," he told the Post in an email. "Private sales have been very spirited and far greater than anticipated."

Originally designed as a way to offer students more protection in the event of a tornado, the $1,000 blanket resembles a padded mat with straps that can be worn like a backpack. The blanket is 5/16-inch thick and covers a student’s entire backside. When a child ducks and covers, the pad is strong enough to protect users from 9mm bullets as well as falling debris like metal shards and nails.

The Bodyguard Blanket is just the latest in a line of bulletproof school supplies by various manufacturers, many of which see sales spike following school shootings. Following the Sandy Hook massacre, for example, the Washington Post reported sales of bulletproof backpacks and other supplies doubled or tripled, in some cases rising more than 500 percent.

As noted by NBC News, events like the Sandy Hook massacre and the Virginia Tech shooting have lingered in the minds of schools, and they have proven willing to spend money in order to protect their students.

Yet for schools that, on average, the National Center for Education Statistics says spent about $11,000 per student as of 2010-11, adding $1,000 each is a significant expense. For ProTecht’s Schone and Steve Walker, the Bodyguard Blanket may not be able to deliver all the benefits of safe rooms or tornado shelters, but they are still cheaper alternatives for institutions short on money.

“By no means would we ever say that this is more protective,” Walker said to the Oklahoman. “But when you have budget constraints, this might be a viable alternative.”

That sentiment is not shared by many safety experts, however. With so many products on the market – bulletproof whiteboards, binders, even pencils – school safety consultant Ken Trump from Ohio argues they are taking time and money away from establishing much better safety procedures.

"It may be well-intended but it’s not well thought-out," Trump told NBC. "I would ask this question: If you need a bulletproof backpack, wouldn't the child also need a bulletproof front pack and a helmet and a Captain America shield?"

Trump, along with Michael Dorn of the school safety group Safe Havens International and Gregory Thomas of Alan Thomas Security, also said that that enhancing school drills and investing in prevention would go much further than purchasing bulletproof objects.

"In the past five years we’ve seen draconian cuts to school security and emergency planning programs," Trump added to NBC.

"Schools have limited resources and they ought to use that money very wisely, put it into an additional school psychologist or a school police officer, train your staff and work with first responders. The most valuable school security tools are invisible





Meanwhile, on the stupid side of the street...

How many school shootings have there been since Sandy Hook? It depends on who's doing the counting.

After the deadly shootings at Reynolds High School in Troutdale, Oregon, Everytown, the  grass-roots gun-control group launched earlier this year by former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, published a list of what it says is every American school shooting since the Dec. 14, 2012, massacre in Newtown, Connecticut. There have been 74, by Everytown's count.

The group defines school shootings as incidents in which "a firearm was discharged inside a school building or on school or campus grounds" and includes "assaults, homicides, suicides, and accidental shootings."

Mark Gongloff, a Huffington Post editor, used Everytown's list to create a map and posted it on Twitter, where it was quickly retweeted more than 1,000 times.

Media outlets, including CNN, the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times and Yahoo News, published stories citing the map and Everytown's figure.

Charles C. Johnson, a conservative journalist and former contributor to conservative website the Blaze, took to Twitter in an effort to debunk Everytown's list, claiming many of the incidents the group classified as a school shooting — including suicides and gang-related violence — should not have been included.

“It’s not a school shooting when someone goes and shoots a specific person on campus," Johnson wrote. "It’s a shooting that happens to take place at school."

By Johnson's count, just seven of the 74 incidents listed by Everytown should have counted as school shootings. (The rest, as Johnson put it on Twitter, were "fake.")

Several conservative outlets — including the Blaze, Hot Air and the Daily Caller — picked up Johnson's criticism of Everytown's "inflated" list.

On Wednesday, CNN.com publishedan article concluding that "15 of the incidents Everytown included were situations similar to the violence in Oregon — a minor or adult actively shooting inside or near a school" — and tossed out shootings that involved "personal arguments, accidents and alleged gang activities and drug deals."

That didn't sit well with Annette Holt, Chicago Fire Department battalion chief and the mother of one of the victims of a shooting excluded by CNN.

"Whenever a gun is fired at school, parents are rightfully terrified," Holt wrote onthe Huffington Post. "Students are rightfully terrified. Try explaining to a shocked and devastated community that the school shooting it's mourning is disqualified because the gun was fired as the result of a 'personal argument.'"

Holt continued:

I suppose if your innocent son is shot by a gang member, it doesn't make the cut. Or if he was shot in an "accidental" shooting (how it's an accident that a gun wound up on school grounds to begin with is beyond me). Or if he pulled a gun out in a classroom and shot himself. Or if he got into a "personal argument" and was shot down in the type of mild playground fight that happens every day in schools, but turned deadly in that instance because a gun was present.

Maybe I should be giving CNN credit because they've managed to do something Washington politicians could not. They've reduced the number of school shootings across the country. But their insistence that 59 school shootings — which have killed 25 people and injured 40 others — don't matter isn't much consolation to parents like me.

Everytown, meanwhile, is standing by its list.

"We use very clear criteria for what constitutes a school shooting and we state exactly what we do and don't count," Erika Soto Lamb, communications director for Everytown, wrote in an email to Yahoo News. "[CNN's] analysis makes light of the 60 other school shootings where fatalities and injuries occurred — not that they had to, ANY gun going off in ANY school should be cause for alarm."

Remarkable thing, the human spirit.

A horrific, and increasing, threat to our students.

In response, two inventions designed to counter that threat.

Even if both are, admittedly, properly filed in the folder marked "something better than nothing".

Because if a suicidal shooter wants in, they're going to find a way to get in.

And a "blanket" that leaves any part of the human body vulnerable leaves the attached human vulnerable.

At least, though, Daniel Nitzel and the people at ProTecht are trying.

And, at the very least, they are talking about the problem.

Which is more than can be said for a lot of people whose sole response to any comment regarding weapons is a passionate, even angry, and, yet, now wearying few minutes of rhetoric as regards their right to bear arms.

Blah.

Blah.

Blah.

Here's a thing.

Seeking solutions to, as opposed to Band-Aid patching of, the problem is, for now, an exercise in futility.

Because solutions cannot be discovered if no one is willing to actually have the conversation.

Sputtering and spewing about 2nd Amendments is not the same thing as conversing.

And let's don't even waste a moment's breath talking about the unconscionable insanity of debating what does, or does not, constitute a "school shooting".

Let's just be thankful for small favors.

That some kids may actually get all the way through the educational process without ever having to slide a sleeve on a door or cower beneath a bulletproof blanket.

And that, for now, despite bureaucracies and bullets, a little schooling actually occurs at school.

Some Shakespeare.

"...the fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars...but in ourselves..."

Along with a little Einstein.

"...you cannot solve a problem with the same mind that created it...."

#	Date	City, State	School Name	Type
1.	1/08/2013	Fort Myers, FL	Apostolic Revival Center Christian School	K-12
2.	1/10/2013	Taft, CA	Taft Union High School	K-12
3.	1/15/2013	St. Louis, MO	Stevens Institute of Business & Arts	College
4.	1/15/2013	Hazard, KY	Hazard Community and Technical College	College
5.	1/16/2013	Chicago, IL	Chicago State University	College
6.	1/22/2013	Houston, TX	Lone Star College North Harris Campus	College
7.	1/31/2013	Atlanta, GA	Price Middle School	K-12
8.	2/1/2013	Atlanta, GA	Morehouse College	College
9.	2/7/2013	Fort Pierce, FL	Indian River St. College	College
10.	2/13/2013	San Leandro, CA	Hillside Elementary School	K-12
11.	2/27/2013	Atlanta, GA	Henry W. Grady HS	K-12
12.	3/18/2013	Orlando, FL	University of Central Florida	College
13.	3/21/2013	Southgate, MI	Davidson Middle School	K-12
14.	4/12/2013	Christianburg, VA	New River Community College	College
15.	4/13/2013	Elizabeth City, NC	Elizabeth City State University	College
16.	4/15/2013	Grambling, LA	Grambling State University	College
17.	4/16/2013	Tuscaloosa, AL	Stillman College	College
18.	4/29/2013	Cincinnati, OH	La Salle High School	K-12
19.	6/7/2013	Santa Monica,CA	Santa Monica College	College
20.	6/19/2013	W. Palm Beach, FL	Alexander W. Dreyfoos School of the Arts	K-12
21.	8/15/2013	Clarksville, TN	Northwest High School	K-12
22.	8/20/2013	Decatur, GA	Ronald E. McNair Discovery Learning Academy	K-12
23.	8/22/2013	Memphis, TN	Westside Elementary School	K-12
24.	8/23/2013	Sardis, MS	North Panola High School	K-12
25.	8/30/2013	Winston-Salem, NC	Carver High School	K-12
26.	9/21/2013	Savannah, GA	Savannah State University	College
27.	9/28/2013	Gray, ME	New Gloucester High School	K-12
28.	10/4/2013	Pine Hills, FL	Agape Christian Academy	K-12
29.	10/15/2013	Austin, TX	Lanier High School	K-12
30.	10/21/2013	Sparks, NV	Sparks Middle School	K-12
31.	11/1/2013	Algona, IA	Algona High/Middle School	K-12
32.	11/2/2013	Greensboro, NC	North Carolina A&T State University	College
33.	11/3/2013	Stone Mountain, GA	Stephenson High School	K-12
34.	11/21/2013	Rapid City, SD	South Dakota School of Mines & Technology	College
35.	12/4/2013	Winter Garden, FL	West Orange High School	K-12
36.	12/13/2013	Arapahoe County, CO	Arapahoe High School	K-12
37.	12/19/2013	Fresno, CA	Edison High School	K-12
38.	1/9/2014	Jackson, TN	Liberty Technology Magnet HS	K-12
39.	1/14/2014	Roswell, NM	Berrendo Middle School	K-12
40.	1/15/2014	Lancaster, PA	Martin Luther King Jr. ES	K-12
41.	1/17/2014	Philadelphia, PA	Delaware Valley Charter HS	K-12
42.	1/20/2014	Chester, PA	Widener University	College
43.	1/21/2014	West Lafayette, IN	Purdue University	College
44.	1/24/2014	Orangeburg, SC	South Carolina State University	College
45.	1/28/2014	Nashville, TN	Tennessee State University	College
46.	1/28/2014	Grambling, LA	Grambling State University	College
47.	1/30/2014	Palm Bay, FL	Eastern Florida State College	College
48.	1/31/2014	Phoenix, AZ	Cesar Chavez High School	K-12
49.	1/31/2014	Des Moines, IA	North High School	K-12
50.	2/7/2014	Bend, OR	Bend High School	K-12
51.	2/10/2014	Salisbury, NC	Salisbury High School	K-12
52.	2/11/2014	Lyndhurst, OH	Brush High School	K-12
53.	2/12/2014	Jackson, TN	Union University	College
54.	2/20/2014	Raytown, MO	Raytown Success Academy	K-12
55.	3/2/2014	Westminster, MD	McDaniel College	College
56.	3/7/2014	Tallulah, LA	Madison High School	K-12
57.	3/8/2014	Oshkosh, WI	University of Wisconsin – Oshkosh	College
58.	3/21/2014	Newark, DE	University of Delaware	College
59.	3/30/2014	Savannah, GA	Savannah State University	College
60.	4/3/2014	Kent, OH	Kent State University	College
61.	4/7/2014	Roswell, NM	Eastern New Mexico University-Roswell	College
62.	4/11/2014	Detroit, MI	East English Village Preparatory Academy	K-12
63.	4/21/2014	Griffith, IN	St. Mary Catholic School	K-12
64.	4/21/2014	Provo, UT	Provo High School	K-12
65.	4/26/2014	Council Bluffs, IA	Iowa Western Community College	College
66.	5/2/2014	Milwaukee, WI	Marquette University	College
67.	5/3/2014	Everett, WA	Horizon Elementary School	K-12
68.	5/4/2014	Augusta, GA	Paine College	College
69.	5/5/2014	Augusta, GA	Paine College	College
70.	5/8/2014	Georgetown, KY	Georgetown College	College
71.	5/8/2014	Lawrenceville, GA	Georgia Gwinnett College	College
72.	5/21/2014	Milwaukee, WI	Clark Street School	K-12
73.	6/5/2014	Seattle, WA	Seattle Pacific University	College
74.	6/10/2014	Troutdale, OR	Reynolds High School	K-12