Amish children return to school

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A Pennsylvania Amish community has officially opened a new schoolhouse to replace the one attacked six months ago by a man who shot five pupils dead.

The New Hope Amish School lies a short distance from the site of the old building where Charles Roberts shot 10 children before committing suicide.

Built along a private lane, the new school has sophisticated locks designed to be secured from the inside.

Four of the five children who survived the attack have now returned to school.

The fifth requires a feeding tube and remains unable to communicate, the Associated Press reported.

Tougher

Police guarded the new private road leading to the school as pupils approached the new site for the first time on Monday.

Road signs warned trespassers to stay away from the area.

John Coldiron, a local planning official, praised the school's new security features, which include heavy-duty locks but not electricity or a telephone line.

"For an Amish one-room schoolhouse, this one is spectacular," he told AP.

That old school was poorly-secured and easily infiltrated by Roberts, who said in a suicide note that he was haunted by memories of molesting two young relatives 20 years ago.

During the attack at the old West Nickel Mines Amish School, just a few hundred metres away, a teacher had to run to a neighbouring farm to use a telephone to alert police.

After the attack, on 2 October, the shocked Amish community pulled the old school building down and started work on the new one, partly financed by donations.