Fire chief feels the heat after escorting son to school prom in department truck

Dustin Sanner and his date post in front of the fire truck they rode in to prom (WPXI)How cool would it be to roll up to your high-school prom in a fire truck? Well, it would probably be less cool for your Dad if he let you be chauffeured without getting permission first.

A Pennsylvania fire chief is coming under fire after it was revealed he allowed his son to ride in one of the station’s fire trucks to his high-school prom.

WPXI reports that the borough council of West Newton approve a measure of “displeasure” after learning that the town’s Fire Chief Craig Sanner permitted one of his department’s trucks “to be used as a prom limousine” to drive his son Dustin and his date to the Young High School prom.

“If true, we feel this is an inappropriate use of public monies,” the resolution reads.

Sanner says the truck was never “out of service” or, outside its range of service.

But Councilman Adam Paterline, who brought a local newspaper photo showing Dustin Sanner and his girlfriend posing in front of the truck, said allowing the pair to ride on the truck raised security issues and cost the town about $100.

Sanner disagreed with Paterline, pointing out that his son has served in the fire department for several years and noted that his wife was driving behind the truck in order to pick up Dustin and his date in case the truck was called into service.

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Flying car crashes outside elementary school

An image of the Maverick during one of its successful test flights (Maverick)The flying car has long tantalized the imaginations of people everywhere. And a recent successful test flight by a Massachusetts company came with the promise that their prototype could go on sale to the public beginning sometime in 2014.

But another company’s airborne vehicle had a much different experience on Friday, when their flying car crashed into a tree just outside a Canadian elementary school.

The Globe and Mail reports that the flying car, dubbed the Maverick, is produced by a company in Florida.

Police spokesman Gord Molendyk told the paper that the two passengers inside the flying car were injured in the crash but are expected to recover. No one else was hurt in the incident, which reportedly occurred just before 9am, local time.

The Maverick is far different than the other flying car that made headlines last month. Instead, this vehicle is more like a dune buggy with a parachute and giant fan attached to the back of the vehicle.

And while this particular flight did not end well, the company that produces the Maverick has in fact conducted a number of successful test flights. They've chronicled several of these flights on their website and they are fascinating to watch.

"The idea is to go beyond roads," Maverick's Raymond Siebring said in an interview last year. "We'll be using it to fly medical supplies and humanitarian aid in places that roads don't reach."

After gaining momentum on a runway of about 3,00 feet, the fan and parasail then combine to life the vehicle off the ground. It needs about an equal distance to safely land.

Molendyk told the paper that after the Maverick took after, it attempted to gain velocity but crashed into a fence and several trees before coming to rest.

In an email sent to the website Jalopnik, reporter described how the Maverick’s inventors intend to use their unique vehicle:

“From what I know, pilot Ray Sebring designed the car to be used in 3rd world countries for missionaries. The idea is when the road ends, they put up the "Wing" and fly until there is road again.”

Maverick’s website describes their vehicle as: “The Maverick LSA design has been developed as an easy-to-operate – air, land, and snow craft. It is intuitive and safe to fly, drive and maintain by people in frontier areas of the world enabling them to use this unique vehicle in missions and humanitarian applications – in the world “beyond roads.”

Though, for the time being, they may have to ignore the final line from Doc Brown in “Back to the Future.” Because it would seem that where they are going, they do in fact, need roads.

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Newtown task force: Tear down Sandy Hook Elementary School, rebuild on same site

Road signs near the entrance of Sandy Hook Elementary School, Dec. 16, 2012. (Dylan Stableford/Yahoo News)

NEWTOWN, Conn.—After weeks of emotional, sometimes-contentious debate, a task force charged with deciding the future of Sandy Hook Elementary School recommended tearing down the school and building a new one on the same property where a gunman killed 26 people—including 20 children—in December in one of the worst school massacres in U.S. history.

The 28-person task force of elected officials voted unanimously for the plan, which was submitted to the Newtown Board of Education. It will now have to be approved by both the school board and residents at an upcoming referendum.

Sandy Hook Elementary School has remained closed since the Dec. 14 shootings. In January, the 430 surviving students were relocated to Chalk Hill School, a retrofitted facility in nearby Monroe.

[Related: Task force meets to decide future of Sandy Hook Elementary School]

Last week at a tense town meeting, officials struggled to come to an agreement on a plan, narrowing the choices to three: renovating the existing structure; building on a new site; or a new Sandy Hook Elementary School at its current location—the plan they ultimately settled on.

"I will chain my body to it and to protest if they try to reopen it," Erica Lafferty, daughter of slain Sandy Hook Elementary School principal Dawn Hochsprung, told NBC's Hartford affiliate after last week's meeting. "It should be knocked down. There should be some type of long-lasting memorial. I don't want people to walk into the building and say, 'Oh well, that's where Erica's mom got gunned down.' That's not OK."

Brian Engel, whose 6-year-old daughter, Olivia, died in the shootings, told the task force he didn't want Olivia's younger brother to have to walk into the building where the massacre took place: "We do want him to go to Sandy Hook School, but at an alternate location—not where his sister died."

[Slideshow: Scenes from Newtown, Dec. 14-21, 2012]

Other parents disagreed. "It's not the building that was the problem," Steven Uhde, the father of a Sandy Hook second grader, said at the May 3 meeting. "It was someone in the wrong frame of mind."

The task force knew it would not be able to please everyone.

"There's no solution that's going to be 100 percent acceptable to any population," Newtown First Selectman Pat Llodra said in April at the panel's first meeting. "There's no perfect solution here. The perfect solution for the town of Newtown would be if this didn't happen to us."

The task force reviewed 40 possible locations for Sandy Hook Elementary, including its current location on Riverside Road.

"The most important thing is that we don't get redistricted," Peter Baressi, a first responder and father of a Sandy Hook first-grader, said in April. "We are part of Newtown."

[Also read: ‘The Ducks of Sandy Hook’ go viral, helping Newtown children heal]

The panel did have something of a road map. Columbine High School in Colorado, where 12 students and one teacher were killed by gunmen 1999, removed the library where most of the victims died and replaced it with an atrium. Virginia Tech "converted a classroom building where a student gunman killed 32 people in 2007 into a peace studies and violence prevention center," the AP said. At West Nickel Mines Amish School in Pennsylvania, officials built a new school several hundred yards away after a gunman killed five girls there in 2006.

And at California's Oikos University, where seven people were killed in 2012, the classroom where they were slain is now "used only for theology classes," NBC News noted.

Officials estimate the cost of constructing the new school will be between $47 million and $59 million. If approved, the new school could open as early 2016.

"It certainly opens the door to a path toward healing that was not there before," Newtown deputy planning director Rob Sibley told the Hartford Courant. "[But] it doesn't detract from the grief we feel on a daily basis."

"We can make that site love again," Uhde added.

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National School Boards Association Applauds Louisiana Supreme Court Ruling to Strike Down Voucher Scheme

ALEXANDRIA, Va., May 7, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The National School Boards Association (NSBA) applauds the ruling by the Louisiana Supreme Court that finds the state's school vouchers unconstitutional.

The Louisiana voucher law has diverted taxpayers' money from public schools to private individuals and schools that are not subject to academic, operational, and accountability standards.

"NSBA stands for strong public school system for all students. Vouchers undermine that fundamental principle and, as the court concluded, violate constitutional principles, too," said NSBA President David A. Pickler. 

Working with the Louisiana School Boards Association (LSBA), NSBA pushed to overturn the law through an amicus brief in Louisiana Federation of Teachers v. State of Louisiana. That lawsuit challenged the constitutionality of several measures adopted by the Louisiana legislature, including the ploy to give vouchers to students in low-performing schools. The NSBA brief noted that the voucher scheme further aggravates the plight of academically challenged schools by taking away much-needed funds from low-performing public schools, thus perpetuating its own survival. 

"These kinds of gimmicks undermine our country's longstanding commitment to public education and steal resources from public school students," said NSBA Executive Director Thomas J. Gentzel. "These are not grassroots efforts being proposed by residents who are concerned about the education and future of the state's most vulnerable children, these are the products of out-of-state special-interest groups looking for profits."  

Under the provisions of the voucher law, Louisiana gives public funds to private schools, including religious schools, as "scholarships" to cover the tuition and fees of students whose parents choose to remove their children from public schools deemed "failing." However, the plan goes so far as to allow parents to use vouchers for their children as early as kindergarten, even if the child never attended a public school or the school is highly ranked.  

"We are pleased that the Louisiana Supreme Court has reaffirmed a basic tenet of the state Constitution: that taxpayer money should go to public schools that are open to all students," said LSBA Executive Director Scott Richard. "We hope all state residents can understand the dangerous precedent that a voucher program has set and how such a program undermines our local community schools. LSBA will continue to work towards its mission of service, support and leadership for local school boards and to ensure a quality public education for all students." 

NSBA opposes private school vouchers and tuition tax subsidies, which have continuously failed to improve student achievement. NSBA is committed to defeating legislation and initiatives that unconstitutionally divert taxpayers' funds from public schools to private and religious institutions that can exclude students for any reason.  

Founded in 1940, the National School Boards Association (NSBA) is a not-for-profit organization representing state associations of school boards and their more than 90,000 local school board members throughout the U.S. Working with and through our state associations, NSBA advocates for equity and excellence in public education through school board leadership. www.nsba.org

SOURCE National School Board Association

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The Chicago School of Professional Psychology Receives California Psychological Association's Psychologically Healthy Workplace Award

LOS ANGELES, April 17, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Chicago School of Professional Psychology's (TCSPP) Los Angeles Campus, recently received a California Psychological Association's (CPA) 2013 Psychologically Healthy Workplace Award. A nonprofit graduate school devoted exclusively to psychology and related behavioral health sciences, the Los Angeles Campus, including the Westwood and Irvine branches, were recognized for superior efforts in the award category of employee involvement. Michele Nealon-Woods, Psy.D., national president of The Chicago School of Professional Psychology, accepted the award at the California Psychological Association's Annual Convention.

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20100518/DC07134LOGO)

Through an employee questionnaire designed to gauge the opinions and needs of faculty and staff, employees gave TCSPP high marks in the following areas: paid time off to engage in volunteer activities, the number of pro bono hours contributed to the community in 2012-2013, contribution to employees' growth and development, work-life balance, employee recognition and the flow of communication within the organization. Each applicant was judged on criteria including: health and safety; employee growth and development; work-life balance; employee recognition and employee involvement. The Psychologically Healthy Workplace Award is supported by the American Psychological Association.

"Maintaining a psychologically healthy workplace at The Chicago School of Professional Psychology is vital to organizational performance and one of the best ways we reduce employee turnover, and keep valuable employees strong, happy and productive," stated Dr. Nealon-Woods. "We thank the CPA for recognizing our success in creating a comprehensive set of programs and policies that motivate employee involvement and, ultimately, benefit their health and prosperity."

"In this time of high job stress and increasing demands on employees, these exemplary workplaces have made it a priority to create environments that are sensitive to the health and well-being of their workers," says Mark Kamena, Ph.D, President of the California Psychological Association. "By rewarding these organizations for their efforts, we hope others will take notice and implement similar programs in their workplaces."

According to a poll by the American Psychological Association, two-thirds of both men and women say work has a significant impact on their stress level, and one in four has missed work because of stress. 

The Psychologically Healthy Workplace Award was created to recognize organizations that understand the link between employee health and well-being and organizational performance and have implemented a variety of workplace practices in an active effort to create a positive work environment.

About The Chicago School of Professional Psychology

Founded in 1979, The Chicago School of Professional Psychology (TCSPP) is a nonprofit, private graduate school devoted exclusively to psychology and related behavioral and health sciences. It serves more than 4,300 students across campuses in Chicago; Los Angeles and branches in Irvine & Westwood); and Washington D.C.  as well as online/blended programs. The institution is accredited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges, and its Clinical Psychology doctoral program in Chicago is accredited by the American Psychological Association. A member of the National Council of Schools and Programs of Professional Psychology, TCSPP is recognized for its distinguished service and outstanding contributions to cultural diversity and advocacy. The community service initiatives on the Chicago Campus have also earned recognition on the President's Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll for six consecutive years, and the Los Angeles Campus gained its first award this year. With more than 20 graduate degree programs, thousands of hours of real-world training, and a wealth of international opportunities, TCSPP is a leader in professional psychology education. To learn more, visit www.thechicagoschool.edu.

SOURCE The Chicago School of Professional Psychology

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California, Pennsylvania, and Virginia School Districts Earn Top National Honors in 2013 Magna Awards

National award program recognizes school districts for outstanding programs that advance student learning and encourage community involvement in schools.

ALEXANDRIA, Va., April 3, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Pennsylvania's Derry Township School District, Virginia's Albemarle County Public Schools, and California's Fontana Unified School District have been named the grand prize winners in the American School Board Journal's (ASBJ) 19^th annual Magna Awards program.

The Magna Awards, supported by Sodexo, recognize districts across the country for outstanding programs that advance student learning and encourage community involvement in schools. This year's three grand prize, 15 first place, and 15 honorable mention winners were selected from three enrollment categories: under 5,000 students, 5,000 to 20,000 students, and over 20,000 students. Each of the grand prize winning school districts will receive a $4,000 contribution from Sodexo on April 14, during Sunday's General Session at NSBA's 73^rd Annual Conference in San Diego.

"The Magna Awards showcase the great work going on in local school districts across the country to increase student achievement and success," said Thomas J. Gentzel, Executive Director of NSBA. "This year's Magna Awards recipients are national models that school leaders can learn from. NSBA commends Sodexo for its continuing support of this program and its goal of highlighting outstanding public school achievements."                                                                 

"Just like the school districts recognized in the annual Magna Awards program, Sodexo supports student achievement," said Steve Dunmore, President of Sodexo Education-Schools. "As a partner in education, Sodexo realizes that it is vitally important to call attention to and support school districts that go above and beyond to enrich the learning environment for its students.  Therefore, we are proud to sponsor the Magna Awards again this year."

Here is information on the grand prize winners:

• The Derry Township School District, in Hershey, Pa., earned the grand prize in the under 5,000 enrollment category for its COCOA Principles program which aims to prepare students to be global citizens. COCOA Principles, which stands for Community Opportunity Citizenship Ownership Academics, has encouraged the entire community, not just students, to be more inclusive, respectful, and responsible citizens. Students seen reflecting the program's principles are nominated for awards, and high school graduation projects must identify the COCOA principle the student is modeling.
• Albemarle County Public Schools, in Charlottesville, Va., is being honored as the grand prize winner in the 5,000 to 20,000 enrollment category for M-Cubed: Math, Men and Mission, a program developed to improve the academic achievement of African-American male students and encourage them to enroll in higher level high school math classes. The program starts with a two-week summer academy for upper elementary and middle school students but extends year-round with mentoring and academic support from the 100 Black Men of Central Virginia, a community group.
• In the over 20,000 enrollment category, the Fontana Unified School District, in Fontana, Calif., is the grand prize winner. The Fontana Leadership Intervention Program (FLIP) focuses on keeping middle and high school students in school and out of the juvenile justice system. FLIP, which is run and funded by a non-profit corporation, offers students classes covering topics such as violence prevention, drug and alcohol resistance, and ethics. Students referred to the program also participate in community projects and their parents must take parenting classes. Since the program's inception there has been a significant decline in behavior issues, including truancy and alcohol and drugs incidents, at a high school, and bullying incidents at a middle school.

ASBJ initiated the Magna Awards in 1995 to recognize school boards for taking bold and innovative steps to improve their educational programs. An independent panel of school board members, administrators, and other educators selected the winners from nearly 300 submissions.

The 2013 winners are highlighted in a special section in the May issue of ASBJ and will be formally recognized on Saturday, April 13, at the Best Practices for School Leaders Luncheon, which is part of NSBA's 73^rd Annual Conference.

In addition to the ASBJ special section, the districts' winning entries will be posted on the Magna Awards website and added to the program's searchable best practices database. Both can be found at www.asbj.com/magna.

2013 Magna Award Winners:

Grand prize winners:
Derry Township School District, Hershey, Pa. – less than 5,000 students,
Albemarle County Public Schools, Charlottesville, Va. – 5,000 to 20,000 students
Fontana Unified School District, Fontana, Calif. – more than 20,000 students

First place winners – under 5,000 students
Bergenfield Public Schools, Bergenfield, N.J.
Eminence Independent Schools, Eminence, Ky.
Northwest Arctic Borough School District, Kotzebue, Alaska
Richmond Community Schools, Richmond, Ind.
Upper St. Clair School District, Upper St. Clair, Pa.

First place winners – 5,000 to 20,000 students
Granville County Schools, Oxford, N.C.
Kearney Public Schools, Kearney, Neb.
Livingston Public Schools, Livingston, N.J.
Roanoke City Public Schools, Roanoke, Va.
Tuscaloosa City Schools, Tuscaloosa, Ala.

First place winners – over 20,000 students
Alamance-Burlington School System, Burlington, N.C. – 2 programs
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools, Charlotte, N.C.
Fulton County School System, Atlanta, Ga.
McAllen Independent School District, McAllen, Texas

Honorable mentions – under 5,000 students
Columbia Heights Public Schools, Columbia Heights, Minn.
Gilford School District, Gilford, N.H.
Jenkins Independent School District, Jenkins, Ky.
Monadnock Regional School District, Supervisory Administrative Unit 93, Swanzey, N.H.
Taylor County School District, Campbellsville, Ky.

Honorable mentions – 5,000 to 20,000 students
Cave Creek Unified School District #93, Cave Creek, Ariz.
Creighton School District #14, Phoenix, Ariz.
Hanover County Public Schools, Ashland, Va.
Kenton County School District, Fort Wright, Ky.
Township High School District 214, Arlington Heights, Ill.

Honorable mentions – over 20,000 students
Arlington Public Schools, Arlington, Va.
Brevard Public Schools, Viera, Fla.
Cypress-Fairbanks Independent School District, Houston, Texas
Houston Independent School District, Houston, Texas
Richardson Independent School District, Richardson, Texas

American School Board Journal
American School Board Journal (www.asbj.com), published monthly by the National School Boards Association (www.nsba.org), serves almost 40,000 school board members and top-level administrators from districts across the nation. The K-12 magazine, published continuously since 1891, has won 17 national honors for education reporting and design since 2006.

Sodexo in North America
Sodexo, Inc. (www.sodexoUSA.com), leading Quality of Life services company in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico, delivers On-site Services in Corporate, Education, Health Care, Government, and Remote Site segments, as well as Benefits and Rewards Services and Personal and Home Services. Sodexo, Inc., headquartered in Gaithersburg, Md., funds all administrative costs for the Sodexo Foundation (www.SodexoFoundation.org), an independent charitable organization that, since its founding in 1999, has made more than $17 million in grants to end childhood hunger in America. Visit the corporate blog at blogs.sodexousa.com.

Sodexo supports achievement by providing expert solutions that improve the quality of life for the students, staff, and communities we serve. Sodexo does this by designing, managing, and delivering services that keep people healthy, safe, and productive while also enriching the learning environment. Sodexo helps the nation's schools be vibrant contributors to the success of their communities.

SOURCE National School Board Association

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New World School of the Arts Dancers Perform the Work of Merce Cunningham at the 92 Y

MIAMI, April 2, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ --  New World School of the Arts  (NWSA) college dancers will perform a Cunningham MinEvent as part of the Fridays At Noon series entitled: Merce Cunningham: New Perspectives, A Living Legacy, in New York City.

(Photo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20130402/DC87643)

Constructed expressly for the NWSA college dancers by Patricia Lent, Trustee and Director of Licensing for the Merce Cunningham Trust, in the form of a MinEvent, the work includes material from Cunningham's Roaratorio (1982), Enter (1992), and Fabrications (1987). The MinEvent will also be offered to the South Florida community during NWSA's College Spring Dance Concert from April 25 through April 28.

Fridays At Noon: Merce Cunningham will be presented on April 5, at 7:30 PM. Harkness Dance Center of the 92^nd Street YM-YWHA. Buttenwieser Hall, Lexington Avenue at 92nd Street, New York City.

Mary Lisa Burns, Dean of Dance at New World School of the Arts, and a former Cunningham Studio Faculty Member and Director of Education for the Cunningham Dance Foundation states:  "We are thrilled to be included in this important program at the 92^nd Street Y, which is providing an opportunity for audiences to see the work of Merce Cunningham as it is embodied by these outstanding young dancers. It is wonderful to see the ways in which Merce's legacy lives and remains vital and relevant to the dance training of today."

"Learning Merce Cunningham's work was exhilarating and challenging. Performing for the MinEvent at the New World Symphony and seeing how enthusiastically the audience received the work was everything we could have asked for. It was an honor doing Merce Cunningham's work -- the opportunity of a life time," said Katelynn Draper, a sophomore from the NWSA Dance Division who will be participating in the performance.

The cast, which performed this work at Miami's New World Symphony's John Cage Festival on February 8^th will include: Leon Cobb, Katelynn Draper, Angela Fegers, Christine Flores, Stephanie Fuentes, Claudia Lezcano, Melanie Martel, Marcus McCray, and Johan Rivera.  

Los Angeles Times critic Mark Swed noted of the Cage Festival performance, "A conducting fellow, Joshua Gersen . . . gave striking point and character to excerpts from . . .  "Sixteen Dances," which included . . . Cunningham dances that were compellingly performed by students from New World School of the Arts."

Fridays At Noon: Merce Cunningham will also include a performance of August Pace (1989) MinEvent staged by Jean Freebury on the Conservatory of Dance students at Purchase College, as well as a panel by former members of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company.

NWSA Dean of Dance, Mary Lisa Burns, was a dancer in the companies of Kenneth King, Brenda Daniels, Gina Gibney and others. Burns was a faculty member for twenty-three years at the Merce Cunningham Studio and served as the Cunningham Dance Foundation's Director of Education prior to joining New World School of the Arts as Dean of the Dance Division in 2011.  She holds an MFA from the Tisch School of the Arts/NYU and currently serves as Board Member and Secretary for the National Association of Schools of Dance. 

The NWSA Dance program is grounded in classical ballet and modern dance techniques. Supporting studies include choreography, music, dance history, anatomy and kinesiology, movement analysis and dance production. Through our progressive program, dance majors participate in intense technical training grounded in classical ballet and modern dance techniques, which leads to jazz and ethnic dance studies as well as exposure to newer dance forms. Guest artists from across the country teach master classes in every dance form, from ballet to hip hop. Our program allows students to sharpen their ability to reproduce movement with speed, accuracy and adaptability, to experience a wider range of techniques, and to establish ties with a variety of dance professionals. Students have opportunities to perform with the New World Dance Ensemble, a touring company, whose repertory includes works in all the dance disciplines. Recent examples of masterworks performed include those of Robert Battle, Martha Graham and George Balanchine.

New World School of the Arts was created by the Florida Legislature as a center of excellence in the performing and visual arts. It is an educational partnership of Miami-Dade County Public Schools, Miami Dade College and the University of Florida.

More information about the Dance Division at New World School of the Arts is available at 305-237-3582 or at nwsa.mdc.edu

SOURCE New World School of the Arts

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NRA-Backed School Safety Review Recommends Arming Educators

WASHINGTON - A task force backed by the National Rifle Association has put forth a slate of recommendations to improve school safety, including a proposal to arm school personnel and train educators on how to police school campuses with the aim of reducing the response time during a school shooting.

Under the protection of armed private security guards at the National Press Club in Washington today, Asa Hutchinson, the director of the National School Shield Program, unveiled the panel's eight recommendations, including a proposal to create a model training program for armed school personnel: essentially resource officers trained in weapons retention, coordination with local law enforcement and battling intruders.

Hutchinson said the task force recommended arming school personnel, including teachers, provided that they pass a background check and complete a comprehensive training program.

"Teachers should teach, but if there is a personnel that has good experience, that has an interest in it and is willing to go through this training … then that is an appropriate resource that a school should be able to utilize," Hutchinson said.

The review not only analyzed practices already in place at some schools, but also examined how changes to technology and surveillance could improve school safety.

"We looked at the interior and exterior doors, access controls, architecture and design of the schools, and then we looked at the armed officers," Hutchinson said. "We believe that they make a difference in the various layers of security that add to school safety."

Mark Mattioli, whose son, James, was killed at the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, Conn., late last year, praised the work of the task force and called on policy makers to put politics aside in the interest of the children.

"As parents, we send our kids off to school, and there are certain expectations, and obviously, in Sandy Hook, those expectations weren't met," Mattioli said. "I hope this doesn't, you know, lead to name- calling, but rather, this is recommendations for solutions, real solutions that will make our kids safer, and that's what we need.

"I'm putting it on you," he continued. "I'm putting it on the experts out there to do something with these recommendations, to implement solutions so people don't have to go through what I'm going through."

Hutchinson, a former U.S. Representative, U.S. Attorney, and Under Secretary for Border & Transportation Security at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, announced the task force's findings at a news conference in downtown Washington today, where he was guarded by a noticeable security presence.

"If you have the firearm on the presence of someone in the school that can reduce the response time, it will save lives. That is the objective," he said. "The presence of an armed security in a school is a layer that's just as important as the mental health component. If you have a mental health component without having other security, it's inadequate, and if you have the armed presence there without having locking doors, it's inadequate."

The NRA created the National School Shield Program last December in the wake of the Sandy Hook elementary school shooting through its Education and Training Emergency Response Program. Since then, some critics have complained that the gun lobby has slowed efforts in Congress to enact new gun control legislation, including an assault weapons ban and universal background checks.

Rep. Mike Thompson, who chaired a Democratic House Gun Violence Prevention Task Force, agreed that school safety is a critical element to reduce gun violence, but in a statement, he called for an inclusive approach to reduce gun violence.

"We should do everything we can to keep our kids safe, and that includes having school resource officers in those schools that want them, and urging our communities to develop safety plans in case of emergencies," Thompson, D-Calif., stated. "However, arming school personnel and training them for shootouts will only exacerbate problems."

The NRA reacted to the findings in a brief statement but declined to immediately endorse any of the recommendations.

"We need time to digest the full report," the NRA statement read. "We commend Asa Hutchinson for his rapid response in the aftermath of the Newtown tragedy, and we are certain the contributions he and his team have made will go a long way to making America's schools safer."

The National School Shield panel also recommended that states enact legislation to allow firearms to be carried by school personnel, schools implement an interagency agreement with local law enforcement to determine the difference between criminal offenses and routine school disciplinary issues, and an online self-assessment tool created by the task force where educators can scrutinize school safety performance and uncover gaps in their own security posture.

"This online assessment tool is available for any school, parochial, private or public school, free of charge on the website whenever it is deployed, and it will not be something the principal can fill out," Hutchinson said. "They'll be asked questions on access control. Are classroom doors kept locked during instructional times? Does the school enforce its visitor sign in and access control? Has a school staff been trained to question or challenge a visitor that's not properly badged? What actions are taken when authorized visitors are detected?"

Hutchinson also recommended that states implement education adequacy policies not to mandate what a school should do, but rather that they do something in terms of assessment and the development of an adequate plan. He also called on federal policymakers to improve federal coordination, which he said is burdened by overlapping and duplicative programs across the Departments of Education, Justice and Homeland Security.

"They need to have a lead agency and they need to have greater coordination," he said. "On the funding side, our recommendation is that the federal role is greater support for innovation, for technology and training grants."

The panel also put forward a recommendation for the National Rifle Association, calling on the National School Shield to transition into "an umbrella organization to advocate and support school safety across this nation" through a free web-based assessment.

Finally, the panel's eighth recommendation is to launch a pilot program on threat assessment and mental health to encourage information-sharing, produce a climate that reduces incidences of bullying and anti-social behavior, identify threats, and offer counseling support.

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