A staged shooting of a Montezuma-Cortez High School teacher in front of unaware students was defended by school administrators on Monday.

Government teacher Don Kuhlman was "shot" with a starter gun in January by a high-school student who entered the classroom specifically to "shoot" him.

The shooting was part of a combined lesson on the criminal-justice system and a student psychology experiment designed to test the skills of crime witnesses.

"When the shot was fired, then she (the student) turned to the class and said, ‘OK, who did the shooting?’" explained assistant principal Dave Crews.

The school resource officer supervised the experiment, and other teachers in the building were notified by the administration that a shot would be fired. Students in the class, however, were unaware that any violence, fake or otherwise, would occur in the class.

That same morning Kuhlman had also played the victim of a stabbing. The stabbing was part of a separate lesson — a murder trial staged and investigated by the students.

When students arrived in the morning, they found Kuhlman lying still on the school floor, covered in ketchup.

"We’ve gotten a lot of support from those students, who say, ‘It was great having that lesson on the criminal-justice system because it took us out of the books’," explained Crews.

The January edition of the Panther Press, the MCHS newspaper, featured a front-page picture of Kuhlman lying on the school floor with several fake blood stains on his abdomen and arm.

A relative of one of Kuhlman’s students, Diane Wagoner, complained that the exercise was too graphic considering the mass school killings, such the Columbine shooting in Littleton, that have occurred around the country in recent years.

"I can’t believe a teacher would be that irresponsible," said Wagoner. "There are other ways to teach the criminal-justice system."

Crews said that other than Wagoner, to his knowledge the school had not received any complaints from students or parents, but the school would likely review any similar lesson plans more closely in the future.

"We were unaware that the students weren’t being notified," admitted Crews.

"We want to have some excitement for the lesson, and we want kids to learn, but I think we still can do some of those things without making it so shock-related."

In response to the death of 15 students during a high-school shooting at Columbine High School two years ago, many schools have stepped up school enforcement and practiced emergency drills. Wagoner objected to subjecting students to a fake violent incident in the classroom — for fear students, aware of other mass shootings, would suffer psychological trauma.

Crews admitted that the shooting might appear callous in light of Littleton.