While schools across America reassess their security measures in the wake of the tragic shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., one school outside of Chicago takes safety to a whole new level.
The security measures at Middleton Elementary School start the moment you set foot on campus, with a camera-equipped doorbell. When you ring the doorbell, school employees inside are immediately able to see you, both through a window and on a security camera.
“They can assess your demeanor,” Kate Donegan, the superintendent of Skokie School District 73 ½, said in an interview with ABC News.
Once the employees let you through the first set of doors, you are only able to go as far as a vestibule. There you hand over your ID so the school can run a quick background check using a visitor management system devised by Raptor Technologies. According to the company’s CEO, Jim Vesterman, only 8,000 schools in the country are using that system, while more than 100,000 continue to use the old-fashioned pen-and-paper system, which do not do as much to drive away unwanted intruders.
“Each element that you add is a deterrent,” Vesterman said.
In the wake of the Newtown shooting, Vesterman told ABC News his company has been “flooded” with calls to put in place the new system. Back at Middleton, if you pass the background check, you are given a new photo ID — attached to a bright orange lanyard — to wear the entire time you are inside the school. Even parents who come to the school on a daily basis still have to wear the lanyard.
“The rules apply to everyone,” Donegan said.
The security measures don’t end there. Once you don your lanyard and pass through a second set of locked doors, you enter the school’s main hallway, while security cameras continue to feed live video back into the front office.
It all comes at a cost. Donegan’s school district — with the help of security consultant Paul Timm of RETA Security — has spent more than $175,000 on the system in the last two years. For a district of only three schools and 1100 students, that is a lot of money, but it is all worth it, she said.
“I don’t know that there’s too big a pricetag to put on kids being as safe as they can be,” Donegan said.
“So often we hear we can’t afford it, but what we can’t afford is another terrible incident,” Timm said.
Classroom doors open inward — not outward — and lock from the inside, providing teachers and students security if an intruder is in the hallway. Some employees carry digital two-way radios, enabling them to communicate at all times with the push of a button. Administrators such as Donegan are able to watch the school’s security video on their mobile devices. Barricades line the edge of the school’s parking lot, keeping cars from pulling up close to the entrance.
Teachers say all the security makes them feel safe inside the school.
“I think the most important thing is just keeping the kids safe,” fourth-grade teacher Dara Sacher said.
Parents like Charlene Abraham, whose son Matthew attends Middleton, say they feel better about dropping off their kids knowing the school has such substantial security measures in place.
“We’re sending our kids to school to learn, not to worry about whether they’re going to come home or not,” she said.
In the wake of the horrific shooting at Sandy Hook last Friday, Donegan’s district is now even looking into installing bullet-resistant glass for the school building. While Middleton’s security measures continue to put administrators, teachers, parents and students at ease, Sacher said she thinks that more extreme measures — such as arming teachers, an idea pushed by Oregon state Rep. Dennis Richardson — are a step too far.
“I wouldn’t feel comfortable being armed,” Sacher said. “Even if you trained people, I think it’d be better to keep the guns out of school rather than arm teachers.”
PARIS: Coal is set to surpass oil as the world's top fuel within a decade, driven by growth in emerging market giants China and India, with even Europe finding it hard to cut use despite pollution concerns, according to a report published Tuesday.
"Thanks to abundant supplies and insatiable demand for power from emerging markets, coal met nearly half of the rise in global energy demand during the first decade of the 21st century," said Maria van der Hoeven, head of the International Energy Agency.
Economic growth is expected to push up further coal's share of the global energy mix, "and if no changes are made to current policies, coal will catch oil within a decade," she said in a statement.
The latest IEA projections see coal consumption nearly catching oil consumption in four years time, rising to 4.32 billion tonnes of oil equivalent in 2017 against 4.4 billion tonnes for oil.
That has consequences for climate change as coal produces far more carbon emissions responsible for global warming than other fuels.
But the IEA report on coal found that even countries which have committed themselves to reducing carbon emissions are finding it difficult to resist the renewed allure of coal.
A number of European countries have seen their use of coal for electricity consumption jump at the beginning of this year, including by 65 per cent in Spain, 35 per cent in Britain and 8 per cent in Germany.
The shale gas boom in the United States has led to a slump in coal prices there and subsequently on the market in Europe, where natural gas remains expensive.
This gave a price advantage to coal beginning last year, with the low price of polluting in Europe's emission trading scheme also a contributing factor.
"Low coal prices, supported by a low (emissions) price resulted in a significant gas-to-coal switch in Europe," said the report.
European countries have been slow to exploit shale gas deposits, concerned about possible environmental damage, but the IEA pointed out that the US experience shows that tapping it can bring benefits from lower coal use as well as lower electricity costs.
"Europe, China and other regions should take note," said van der Hoeven.
Moreover, the IEA report doesn't foresee within the next five years the widespread take-up of technology to capture and store underground carbon emissions from burning coal.
Van der Hoeven warned that "coal faces the risk of a potential climate policy backlash" unless there is technological progress or a replication of the US experience.
The IEA, the energy advisory arm of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development of 34 industrialised nations, sees non-OECD developing countries as driving the increase in coal consumption due to population growth and rising electricity consumption as their economies grow and modernise.
In its baseline scenario, the IEA sees rapid increases in power generation making India the second-largest coal consumer in 2017, displacing the United States where the shale gas boom makes coal uncompetitive.
Chinese coal consumption is forecast to account for more than half of global demand by 2014, with the country also displacing the United States as the biggest coal polluter on a per-capita basis.
The IEA sees China's coal demand increasing by an average of 3.7 per cent per year to 3,190 million tonnes of coal equivalent in 2017.
Even in the case of a slowdown in the breakneck growth in the Chinese economy the IEA sees the country's use of coal growing by 2 per cent per year, as well as the overall coal market growing.
The agency said that given its position developments in the Chinese market would largely determine the course of the global coal market, saying: "China is coal. Coal is China."
The IEA believes that current mining and port expansion projects are sufficient to meet China's rising needs, but expressed concern if the current low prices and uncertainties about the economic outlook make investors overly cautious.
Cancellations or a slowdown in "development projects might lead to tightened international coal markets" in the next five years, the IEA warned.
The report sees only the United States making reductions on coal-based carbon emissions on per capita and per economic output measures thanks to cheap gas displacing coal.
Increased coal use pushes up China's emissions on a per capita basis, displacing the United States as the top polluter.
However. China is also seen as making the most gains in emissions efficiency, followed by the United States.
Neither the Europe nor India are forecast to make considerable gains in emissions efficiency.
NEWTOWN, Conn. Family members have gathered for the first of eight funerals for school shooting victims to be held at a Catholic church in Newtown, Conn.
A motorcade of dozens of vehicles led by police motorcycles accompanied the family of 6-year-old James Mattioli to St. Rose of Lima on Tuesday. His funeral comes a day after two other 6-year-old boys were laid in the first of a long, almost unbearable procession of funerals.
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Holiday week is full of funerals for Newtown, Conn.
Margarita Rosniak and her 10-year-old daughter, Charlotte, watched from the sidewalk as people entered the church. They had traveled from California for a Christmas vacation in New York and came to Newtown to join the residents in their grief.
Clutching her daughter close, Margarita Rosniak spoke of sympathizing with the parents. Her daughter says she plans to do a school project on the massacre. She asks, "What was the point of it? They're just little kids."
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Funerals begin for Conn. shooting victims
Meanwhile, a funeral for another of the 20 innocent children killed - 6-year-old Jessica Rekos - was also scheduled for Tuesday. Her family says she loved horses and had just asked Santa for new cowgirl boots and a cowgirl hat, CBS News correspondent Randall Pinkston reported.
Security remained high, and the small, affluent Connecticut community was still on edge as the rest of the country prepared for the Christmas holidays.
"There's going to be no joy in school," said 17-year-old P.J. Hickey. "It really doesn't feel like Christmas anymore." But he added, "This is where I feel the most at home. I feel safer here than anywhere else in the world."
In a sign of investors distancing themselves from gun makers, private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management announced it would sell its stake in major arms manufacturer Freedom Group. It said in a statement, "It is apparent that the Sandy Hook tragedy was a watershed event that has raised the national debate on gun control to an unprecedented level."
The mystery of why a smart but severely withdrawn 20-year-old, Adam Lanza, shot his mother to death in bed before rampaging through Sandy Hook Elementary, killing 20 children ages 6 and 7, was as deep as ever.
Sandy Hook Elementary will remain closed indefinitely.
Investigators say Lanza had no ties to the school he attacked, and they have found no letters or diaries that could explain why he targeted it. He forced into the school shortly after its front door locked as part of a new security measure. He wore all black and is believed to have used a Bushmaster AR-15-style rifle, a civilian version of the military's M-16. Versions of the AR-15 were outlawed in the U.S. under the 1994 assault weapons ban, but the law expired in 2004.
Debora Seifert, a spokeswoman for the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, said both Lanza and his mother fired at shooting ranges and visited ranges together.
At the White House on Monday, spokesman Jay Carney said curbing gun violence is a complex problem that will require a "comprehensive solution." He did not mention specific proposals to follow up on President Barack Obama's call for "meaningful action."
New York City's billionaire Mayor Michael Bloomberg, perhaps the most outspoken advocate for gun control in U.S. politics, again pressed Obama and Congress to toughen gun laws and tighten enforcement.
"If this doesn't do it," he asked, "what is going to?"
At least one senator, Virginia Democrat Mark Warner, said Monday that the attack has led him to rethink his opposition to the ban on assault weapons. And West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, a Democrat who is an avid hunter and lifelong member of the powerful National Rifle Association, said it's time to move beyond the political rhetoric and begin an honest discussion about reasonable restrictions on guns.
In Newtown on Monday, minds were on mourning.
Two funeral homes filled for Jack Pinto and the youngest victim, Noah Pozner, who turned 6 just two weeks ago..
A rabbi presided at Noah's service, and in keeping with Jewish tradition, the boy was laid to rest in a simple brown wooden casket with a Star of David on it.
"I will miss your perpetual smile, the twinkle in your dark blue eyes, framed by eyelashes that would be the envy of any lady in this room," Noah's mother, Veronique Pozner, said at the service, according to remarks the family provided to The Associated Press. Both services were closed to the news media.
Noah's twin, Arielle, who was assigned to a different classroom, survived the killing frenzy.
At 6-year-old Jack Pinto's Christian service, hymns rang out from inside the funeral home, where the boy lay in an open casket.
In the middle of town, an ever-growing memorial has become a pilgrimage site for strangers who want to pay their respect.
One man told CBS Station WCBS why he visited: "Because I'm a dad with four beautiful daughters, when I found out it broke my heart. It's hard to sleep, I don't know how to feel."
Authorities say Lanza shot his mother, Nancy, at their home and then took her car and some of her guns to the school, where he broke in and opened fire. A Connecticut official said the mother, a gun enthusiast who practiced at shooting ranges, was found dead in her pajamas in bed, shot four times in the head with a .22-caliber rifle.
Lanza was wearing all black, with an olive-drab utility vest with lots of pockets, during the attack.
As investigators worked to figure out what drove him to lash out with such fury -- and why he singled out the school -- federal agents said he had fired guns at shooting ranges over the past several years but that there was no evidence he did so recently as practice for the rampage.
Debora Seifert, a spokeswoman for the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, said both Lanza and his mother fired at shooting ranges, and also visited ranges together.
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"We do not have any indication at this time that the shooter engaged in shooting activities in the past six months," Seifert said.
Investigators have found no letters or diaries that could explain the attack.
Whatever his motives, normalcy will be slow in revisiting Newtown.
Classes were canceled district-wide Monday, though other students in town were expected to return to class Tuesday.
Dan Capodicci, whose 10-year-old daughter attends the school at St. Rose of Lima Roman Catholic Church, said he thinks it's time for her to get back to classes.
"It's the right thing to do. You have to send your kids back. But at the same time I'm worried," he said. "We need to get back to normal."
Gina Wolfman said her daughters are going back to their seventh- and ninth-grade classrooms tomorrow. She thinks they are ready to be back with their friends.
"I think they want to be back with everyone and share," she said.
Newtown police Lt. George Sinko said whether to send children to school is a personal decision for every parent.
"I can't imagine what it must be like being a parent with a child that young, putting them on a school bus," Sinko said.
The district has made plans to send surviving Sandy Hook students to Chalk Hill, a former middle school in the neighboring town of Monroe. Sandy Hook desks that will fit the small students are being taken there, empty since town schools consolidated last year, and tradesmen are donating their services to get the school ready within a matter of days.
"These are innocent children that need to be put on the right path again," Monroe police Lt. Brian McCauley said.
With Sandy Hook Elementary still designated a crime scene, state police Lt. Paul Vance said it could be months before police turn the school back over to the district.
The shooting has put schools on edge across the country.
Anxiety ran high enough in Ridgefield, Conn., about 20 miles from Newtown, that officials ordered a lockdown at schools after a person deemed suspicious was seen at a train station.
Two schools were locked down in South Burlington, Vt., because of an unspecified threat. A high school in Windham, N.H., was briefly locked down after an administrator heard a loud bang, but a police search found nothing suspicious.
David Gergen says we should take a cue from Lincoln's Gettysburg Address
He says U.S. must deal with its culture of guns and find real solutions
Gun owners should be licensed, and assault weapons should be banned, he says
He says we will be held morally accountable for what we do -- or fail to do
Editor's note: David Gergen is a senior political analyst for CNN and has been an adviser to four presidents. A graduate of Harvard Law School, he is a professor of public service and director of the Center for Public Leadership at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government. Follow him on Twitter.
(CNN) -- Yet again we are struggling to bear the unbearable. How can we find meaning in the massacre of so many innocent children, savagely cut down in a hail of bullets?
Abraham Lincoln is much on our minds these days and, fortunately, there is much his life teaches us about giving meaning to human horror. Eleven months from now, we will be celebrating the 150th anniversary of his journey to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, where he consecrated a national cemetery in honor of the thousands slaughtered in the Civil War battle there.
In the most eloquent address in American history, Lincoln told us, "The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to (their) great unfinished work." In their honor, he concluded, "we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom."
David Gergen
These were not idle words; he devoted himself to action. In the final months of his life, as the new film on Lincoln shows, he threw himself into the enactment of the 13th Amendment, outlawing slavery in the entire nation. After his death, the nation continued to act as he had asked, passing the 14th Amendment and quickening its progress toward realizing the dream of the Declaration: that all are created equal.
The shootings in Connecticut are not Gettysburg, but surely the long, unending string of killings that we have endured must do more than touch our hearts. As Lincoln saw, we must find meaning in the madness of life -- and we do that by honoring the dead through action.
The moment to act is now upon us, not to be lost as we rush headlong into the holiday season and more twists and turns ahead. We are better than that.
There is a common thread running through most of the mass killings we have seen in recent years: A deranged gunman gets his hands on a gun, usually a semi-automatic, and rapidly cuts down innocents before anyone can stop him.
Clearly, we must find better answers for the mentally unstable. We have the ability to recognize the characteristics of those more likely to commit such acts of violence, and we must do more to provide long-term treatment.
But just as clearly, we need to change our culture of guns. There is something terribly wrong in a nation that has some 300 million guns floating around, easily accessible to the mentally ill. Of the 62 mass shootings in the U.S. over the past three decades, more than three-quarters of the guns used were obtained legally.
Unless we act to change our laws as well as our culture, we will all be enablers when the next loner strikes. The blood will be on our hands, too.
Experts can come up with precise policy prescriptions that will allow us to maintain the constitutional freedoms of the 2nd Amendment while also changing our gun culture. Contrary to what the National Rifle Association says, it is very possible to do both. What is needed immediately is a conversation determining what principles we want to establish -- and then action to realize them. From my perspective, there should be at least three basic principles:
FIRST: To own a gun, you must first have a license -- and it shouldn't be easy to get. The right parallel is to cars: Everyone over a prescribed age is entitled to drive. But cars are dangerous, so we first require a license -- determining that you are fit to drive. Citizens have a right to bear arms, but guns are dangerous, too. So, get a license.
There are a number of issues with our current system of state-based permits. First, variation in gun regulations from state to state deeply complicates enforcement efforts. Arizona, for instance, allows concealed carry without any permit, while its neighbor California has implemented the strongest gun laws in the country. We must design a sensible federal gun control policy to address the current legal chaos.
As we construct a federal licensing system, we should look to California. The state requires all gun sales to be processed through a licensed dealer, mandating background checks and a ten-day waiting period; bans most assault weapons and all large-capacity magazines; closes the nonsensical gun-show loophole; and maintains a permanent record of all sales.
SECOND: If you are a civilian, you can't buy an assault gun. Hunters don't need military style weapons, nor do homeowners who want to be able to protect their families. They are far too popular among people who shouldn't have access to guns in the first place.
We should restore the federal ban that has expired.
THIRD: Parents should be heavily advised to keep guns out of their houses and out of the hands of kids. No one wants to blame the poor mother of the Connecticut shooter, but everyone wonders why she kept so many military-style guns in the house, so accessible to her son. It's hard to believe, but roughly a third of households with children younger than 18 contain at least one gun. In too many neighborhoods in America -- not just in big cities -- parents who don't allow guns in their homes are apprehensive, even frightened, by their kids playing at homes where they are kept.
Some years ago, no one thought that we could change our tobacco culture. We did. No one thought that we could reduce drunk driving by teenagers. We did -- thanks in large part to Mothers Against Drunk Driving.
Years from now, no one will note what we say after this latest massacre. But they will hold us morally accountable for what we do. To honor all of those who have been slain in recent years -- starting with the first-graders in Connecticut -- we should highly resolve to change our culture of guns.
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The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of David Gergen.
SINGAPORE: The Singapore National Employers Federation (SNEF) says the government can help in defraying the cost of training foreign workers.
In an interview with MediaCorp, SNEF president Stephen Lee said the federation is in discussions with various agencies to see how this can be done.
Mr Lee pointed out that the productivity of foreign workers must be raised in order for Singapore to achieve its long term productivity target of 2 to 3 per cent.
To recruit better skilled workers, the federation says a few industries are working with the authorities to implement a stricter pre-selection process where workers are tested for their skills before they arrive in Singapore.
Construction workers like Umesh Sundaram survives on less than S$300 a month. He earns about S$1,100 a month and sends most of it to his family in India.
The 25-year-old hopes he can earn more as his skills improves.
"I'd like to go for training to be more productive, so it can increase my salary," said Umesh.
The Workforce Development Agency (WDA) tells MediaCorp that only a small number of foreign workers are sent for training by their companies.
Mr Lee said foreign workers, who represent one third of the workforce, cannot be neglected.
"We must have some programmes to train foreign workers. Those who are already here, (we can) re-train them, to upgrade their skills...the more sensitive question is: who will take up the tab for this training?" he said.
"We are in discussions with various agencies to see how they can do that without putting undue burden on the government's training expenses," he added.
The government currently does not provide direct training subsidies for foreign workers.
Labour chief Lim Swee Say pointed out that employers are ultimately responsible for improving the productivity of migrant workers.
"The ownership of upgrading every worker cannot be with the government, or the tripartite partners, it has to be with the management," he said.
Observers noted that some companies hire foreign workers on short-term contracts, which reduce the incentive to send them for training.
However they pointed out that there were many reasons to train workers who stay with the company longer; HR experts believe foreign workers will be able to earn more when their productivity increases and can take on greater responsibilities.
"Cost is always a major consideration for any business and if the company has to come out with additional cost to train these foreign workers and with very minimal productivity gains, then it won't be (much of an incentive)," said Ronald Lee, managing director of PrimeStaff Management Services.
"However, if the government does come by and also support and provide finances to supplement this training, then it will be easier to incentivise the employers to provide more training," he said.
The Jacksonville Jaguars observe a moment of silence to honor the victims of the Connecticut school shooting before their game against the Miami Dolphins at Sun Life Stadium on Sunday, December 16. Check out the action from Week 15 of the NFL and then look back at the best photos from Week 14.
NEWTOWN, Conn. When the parents of Connecticut school shooter Adam Lanza divorced in 2009, their legal documents offer no hints of an acrimonious split and make no mention of any lingering mental health or medical issues for the then-teenage boy.
Newly-public divorce paperwork shows that Nancy Lanza had the authority to make all decisions regarding her son's upbringing.
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The court papers were made public Monday.
The divorce was finalized in September 2009, when Adam Lanza was 17.
There is no evidence of bitterness in the court file, no exchange of accusations or drawn out custody disputes.
Nancy and Peter Lanza had joint legal custody of Adam but he lived with his mother. The parents agreed to consult and discuss major decisions affecting Adam's best interests. In instances where the parents couldn't agree, Nancy Lanza "shall make the final decision," Judge Stanley Novak wrote on Sept. 24, 2009.
Nancy Lanza, who was once a stockbroker for John Hancock in Boston, married Peter Lanza in Kingston, N.H., in June 1981. The divorce file said the marriage "has broken down irretrievably and there is no possibility of getting back together."
The divorce agreement gave Nancy Lanza $265,000 in alimony last year.
It makes no mention of any mental health issues regarding her son.
As part of the divorce, Nancy Lanza was ordered to attend a parenting education program. The provider, Family Centers Inc., certified that she completed the program on June 3 and June 10, 2009. The document says only that Lanza "satisfactorily completed the program."
The documents also say Adam Lanza has lived his entire life at the Newtown home where he shot his mother to death, before going to Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., on Friday morning and killing 20 children and six adults before taking his own life.
A Connecticut officials said Nancy Lanza was found in bed, in her pajamas, shot four times in the head with a .22-caliber rifle.
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Victims of Conn. school shooting
Adam Lanza is believed to have used a Bushmaster AR-15 rifle in the school attack, a civilian version of the military's M-16 and a model commonly seen at marksmanship competitions. Versions of the AR-15 were outlawed in the United States under the 1994 assault weapons ban; that law expired in 2004, and Congress, in a nod to the political power of the gun-rights lobby, did not renew it.
Neighbors told CBS News that Nancy Lanza was a gun enthusiast and often took Adam Lanza target shooting with her; it was her guns Adam used against her and the women and children at Sandy Hook.
CBS News' Pat Milton reports a source briefed on the investigation said that Nancy Lanza was demanding of her children. Even though Adam was highly intelligent, she pressed him to high standards and even pressed her sons to measure up at the shooting range where she taught them to shoot, the source said.
Federal agents have concluded that Adam Lanza had visited an area shooting range, but they do not know whether he practiced shooting there. Agents determined Lanza's mother visited shooting ranges several times, but it's not clear whether she took her son or whether he fired a weapon there, said Ginger Colbrun, a spokeswoman for the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
Adam's aunt, Marsha Lanza of Crystal Lake, Ill., said that Nancy Lanza kept guns for own safety, and had something of a survivalist mentality; she was worried about protecting her home if the economy went south.
Money was not an issue for the family. Marsha said her ex-husband left Nancy "well-off . . . She didn't have to work."
However, a friend of Nancy Lanza, local landscaper Dan Holmes, said she evidently still suffered from a bad divorce and could be pretty vocal about her ex-husband ... years afterwards."
Peter Lanza, a tax director who lives in Stamford, Conn., issued a statement relating his own family's anguish in the aftermath.
"Our family is grieving along with all those who have been affected by this enormous tragedy. No words can truly express how heartbroken we are," he said. "We are in a state of disbelief and trying to find whatever answers we can. We too are asking why. ... Like so many of you, we are saddened, but struggling to make sense of what has transpired."
The parents of Jessica Rekos, a 6-year-old girl who died during the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., said they are committed to keeping their daughter's memory alive despite their pain.
"We will talk about her every day, we will live for her," Krista Rekos told ABC News. "We will make sure her brother knows what an amazing person she was."
Richard and Krista Rekos say that talking about Jessica, who loved horseback riding and whom they called the CEO of their family, brings tiny moments of comfort.
CLICK HERE for full coverage of the massacre at the elementary school.
"Jessica loved writing, and she would often leave us little notes all over the house," Rekos said. "They would just say, 'I love you so much.'
"She was a ball of fire, she ruled the roost," Krista Rekos said.
When the call came Friday morning that Sandy Hook Elementary was on lockdown, Krista Rekos rushed in disbelief through the town where she and her husband were raised, a place they had always felt safe.
"I was running, and I kept thinking, 'I'm coming for you honey, I'm coming,'" she said, choking up.
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Richard Rekos said they initially had little information on what had happened.
"We had no idea at that point," he said. "We thought, OK, the reports are that one or two people may have been injured and taken to hospitals. There was still hope, that the children were hiding, there was still so much hope at that point."
The couple said that they walked around the firehouse, thinking that maybe Jessica had been taken there.
"I knew exactly what she was wearing, and I was hoping to see her little ponytail run around the corner, and her jacket and her black glittery Uggs that she had on that morning," Krista Rekos said.
Finally, around 1:15 p.m., everyone was asked to sit down, and a police officer said 20 children had been killed.
"We couldn't get a straight answer," Richard Rekos said. "There's so much panic and confusion when that announcement was made, the life was just sucked out of the room. And you know, I just point-blank found a state trooper and said, 'Are you telling me that standing here as a parent that my daughter is gone?' And he said, 'Yes.'"
The Rekoses were asked to stay at the firehouse to identify their daughter's body but, overcome with grief, they left in disbelief. The couple went home, and got into their daughter's bed, staying there until about 1 a.m., they said.
At that point there was a knock on the door and a police officer said that Jessica was dead.
"It just confirmed the nightmare, it's not real," Krista Rekos said. "It's still not real that my little girl who's so full of life and wants a horse so badly, and who was going to get cowboy boots for Christmas, isn't coming home."
The couple said the pain is just settling in. But equally strong is their commitment to keeping their daughter's memory alive.
The parents said that their 6-year old family powerhouse, with an enormous heart, will forever be their angel who left behind love notes that are still being found.
"This morning I found a little journal, and it was exactly what I needed, because it says, 'I love you so much momma, love Jessica,'" her mother said.
"It was like she was telling me she was watching us and she knows how hard this must be for us, and she wants us to know she loved us, and she knows how much she was loved."
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