Hearing the commotion on the floor below, Professor Kevin Granata took 20 students from a third-floor classroom into his office where the door could be locked.

The police received a 911 call at 11:10 a.m., reporting that an agitated student in a third-floor classroom had fired a gun, the chief said in an interview.

The teachers' lounge at Aviation, a vocational-technical school that specializes in training airline mechanics, is across the hall from his third-floor classroom.

But in her third-floor classroom during first period, they seem as vapid as the poster on the wall of Bo Jackson with a book in his hands.

As the tardy bell rang for the start of first period recently, Bernie Weiner, a graphic arts teacher, stood outside his third-floor classroom trying to shepherd straggling students into classes.

School and union officials said they were investigating that construction-related matter when they discovered debris that appeared to be asbestos in several third-floor classrooms.

When it was raining," she said, "water dripped into third-floor classrooms, and there were buckets on the floor.

During the lunch period, a half dozen boys improvised a rough game of hockey in a third-floor classroom, using their legs as sticks and a flattened soda can as the puck.

On Monday the student took a 9 millimeter semiautomatic pistol to Lewis and Clark High School and barricaded himself in a third-floor classroom.

He had been struck by a shard of glass that had broken free from the window of a third-floor classroom.