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Education

Georgia Teacher Suspended After Pretending to Shoot 1st Graders to Teach Them About Newtown

Feb. 16, 2013 8:20am Madeleine Morgenstern

A Georgia teacher was suspended after he pretended to shoot first-graders to teach them about the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre.

The teacher at Odyssey School in Newnan, Ga., identified as Mariano Pacetti, was playing a kind of hide-and-seek game where he encouraged students to hide while he pretended to be a gunman, the Newnan Times-Herald reported. He formed a gun with his fingers and pointed to one boy and said, “Bang you’re dead.”

School director Andy Geeter told the newspaper Pacetti “exercised poor judgement” in the activity, which some parents said gave their children nightmares, according to WAGA-TV. Twenty first-grade students and six adults were killed when a gunman shot his way into the school in Newtown, Conn. and opened fire before killing himself in December.

Pacetti is a middle school band instructor who was substitute teaching a first-grade physical education class. Letters went home to parents about the incident, and Pacetti, described as one of the school’s most popular teachers, was suspended and ordered to undergo professional training, WAGA reported.

“It was an administrative decision made by me after conversations with the parents, classroom teacher and Mr. Pacetti as well as consultation with our head of school. He is now back at work,” Geeter said in an email to the Huffington Post.

The school offered the students counseling, though none accepted the offer.

“There are things that you can and can’t do, and it shows, if nothing else, that you just can’t do security off the cuff. You have to train and prepare for it,” Geeter told WAGA.

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Comments (109)

Disavowed 1
Posted on February 18, 2013 at 2:13am
At this point, they dont even know who the shooter may have been. New release from the prosecuter and state atty. States they have compelling evidence of multiple shooters. Sealed the case for another 90 days. Search the terms.

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Rileydj
Posted on February 17, 2013 at 7:10pm
Everyone needs to relax

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JediKnight
Posted on February 17, 2013 at 10:44am
This deserves a suspension? The kids were traumatized? It may not have been the best judgment, but I think that’s a little overboard.

They practiced hiding from a shooter at my son’s school by making sure the local police couldn’t see them as they walked by the classroom. I’ve already informed my son to play dead if a shooter shows up. If he’s outside, get behind a building where the shooter can’t see you. I pray he never has to put that into action.

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betterpart
Posted on February 17, 2013 at 4:39am
Interesting to note that school officials don’t ‘ban’ or suspend teachers who rape and molest their students. Typical.

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demsrtraitors
Posted on February 16, 2013 at 11:38pm
I hope this liberal doesn’t teach sex ed to the children. Heaven only knows what this sick union backed liberal would do.

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toto
Posted on February 16, 2013 at 11:36pm
This is why we have soldiers coming home with PTSD. Morons in schools do not allow little boys to be boys and the male teachers were not allowed to be manly men and teach kids how to be tough. When these kids go off to war, they see the REAL world, not the namby pamby false world of liberal dogma. Pointing a finger and saying bang is nothing close to the real thing, yet the liberals are apoplectic if someone, adult or child does it. (Then they go home and play their video games, listen to rap and watch all forms of gun violence in the media.) Anybody see a disconnect with reality here? No wonder so many kids are going nuts.

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begreen
Posted on February 16, 2013 at 8:46pm
substitute teaching Suspended forpretending to Shoot 1st Graders ??? What a bunch of stupid retards. Give me a break.

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wilbstal
Posted on February 16, 2013 at 7:19pm
My school days we had fire drills, Nuke attacks from russia we ran under our desks, then we had rifle range practice on school grounds when it let out. I hunted my way to the school bus stop left my rifle unloaded behind a farmers tree he said it would be oaky. Kids are babied to death, teach them all about the dangers of life so they can be prepared like I was. I knew there were bad guys out there and My father and grand father made sure of two things. That I could load and shoot a gun accurately and i could swim. And then I was let go to hunt and fish as I saw fit when not in school. I took my rifle with me when I fished just in case of tatsy game and crooks bothered me. Im 70 now and they were great days for me I loved all of them. stop depriving your kid of what he needs to survive.

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Tmaster
Posted on February 16, 2013 at 7:11pm
these liberals will stop at nothing to try and teach gun control to the children. Yet the still refuse to teach gun safety to them.

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denkat56
Posted on February 16, 2013 at 6:34pm
Where in the hell do these intellectual idiots come from.

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Barnesrickw
Posted on February 16, 2013 at 4:20pm
I see you are all back to hating teachers again. A few months ago you wanted them to carry something more powerful that a finger gun.

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