Oct 26, 2006 8:38 am US/Central
Burleson Regrets Training Students To Fight Back
by Jay Gormley
(CBS 11 News Exclusive)
A Burleson teacher was removed from the classroom and faces opposition to his radical measures to prevent school violence.
Greg Crane began training teachers in Burleson ISD and received national attention earlier this month when a training video was shown on local and national news and talk programs following school incidents in Colorado, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.
The course, called Critical Incident Response, instructs the students to defend their lives and classroom by first knowing what items can be used as a weapon.
"The first rule of defense is to understand that everything in a classroom can be used as a weapon; a pencil, a book, scissors, picture frames, even a computer monitor," Crane said in an Oct. 5interview with CBS 11.
Another part of the training video shows students throwing objects and then rushing and tackling a gunman.
"Between the sight and the sound, the noise, the mayhem and the chaos, the gunman has to mentally deal with that. Which means he's thinking of that and not about pulling the trigger," Crane said in that same interview.
"This training has made Burleson a hard target," Crane said Wednesday. " 'Comply and die' should not be an option. "
He said prior to the media attention, everything was great.
Crane, a former SWAT officer, developed the program after he asked his wife, principal at Burleson's Norwood Elementary, what she would do if an armed attacker entered a classroom.
Lisa Crane realized she and other teachers had armies in their classrooms already.
"Just because the gun goes, off does not mean you can't still fight. You can still try to gain control of the situation where you can still get the children out," she said in the Oct. 5 visit to the school.
Greg Crane said 85 percent of the parents who called the district approved of his methods.
He said he's become a victim of a minority who call it "too risky."
Greg Crane worked as a teacher at Burleson High School until his removal. District officials said he remains a school employee.
In a letter to parents, officials said the district supports creating chaos, but it does not support teaching students to attack a gunman.
" It's about exiting the danger situation, not to attack the intruder," Crane said in his defense.
Mark Jackson, Burleson ISD superintendent, said the district was not aware of Crane's radical approach.
"And so for our teachers to see the chaos going on was not a surprise. The surprise was moving toward the intruder."
Crane said the district has always known and said it actively participated as recently as two weeks ago when his group participated in a nationally-broadcast live demonstration of students attacking an armed gunman who came into there classroom.
He said district personnel did attend that session.
Crane added all 600 Burleson ISD teachers had been trained. The district also received a $95,000 federal grant to train all of the students as well.
(CBS 11 News)
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