A Pennsylvania school superintendent who has been scorched with ridicule on social media for arming students and staff with buckets of rocks to oppose intruders as a last resort is standing by the policy.
Superintendent David Helsel of the Blue Mountain School District in Orwigsburg, Pa. says the "attention was due to social media posts that took particularly with the planned use of stones", according to a statement on the school system's website.
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The school district has added extra armed security in it's six schools because of "our concern regarding the possibility that something may happen because of the media attention," the statement said.
Helsel gained attention after video of his appearance in front of a Pennsylvania House of Representatives education committee hearing March 15th began to go viral.
"Every classroom has been equipped with a five-gallon bucket full of river stone," Helsel told legislators. "We have some people with some pretty good arms. They can chuck a rock pretty fast."
Some critics were particularly outraged by laughter overheard in the hearing.
Helsel stands by the policy and his district's school safety plan.
The plan focus' on the basics of evacuating, locking down, and establishing strong barricades against an intruder.
The bucket of rocks idea was Helsel's local modification of a nationally recognized active shooter training protocol used in schools throughout the U.S.
As a last resort against an intruder: "All students are to counter...their entry by throwing items at the intruder to inflict as much damage as possible and protect themselves," says the protocol from the ALICE Training Institute, which bills itself as the nation's "#1 active shooter civilian response training".
"Rocks are better than books and pencils," one student told Scranton television station WNEP.
Another resident called the policy "absurd."
The Blue Mountain School District serves about 3,000 students from several central Pennsylvania small towns at six schools.
Blue Mountain High School ranks in the top 30 percent of Pennsylvania high schools according to an annual survey by the Pittsburgh Business Times
The population of Orwigsburg is slightly over 3,000.
