RANCHO TEHAMA RESERVE, Calif. (AP) — A gunman on a deadly mission rushed onto the grounds of a tiny elementary school in rural Northern California where small children were straggling into classrooms after getting dropped off for another day of school.

Dozens of children in the path of the shooter could have been hurt if not for the quick thinking and training of staff and students who immediately implemented a lockdown that had been practiced for years.

Corning Union Elementary School District Superintendent Richard Fitzpatrick said Wednesday the drill went exactly as practiced.

He said many more children could have been hurt or killed after Kevin Janson Neal started shooting at classrooms and the school office. One child was hospitalized with gunshot wounds and is expected to survive.

"I really, truly believe we would have had a horrific bloodbath at that school if that school hadn't taken the action that it did," Assistant Tehama County Sheriff Phil Johnston said.

Fitzpatrick said there were many heroics during the Tuesday incident, starting with the school secretary quickly recognizing the threat.

He said it "made all the difference between 100 kids being around today and dozens being shot or killed."

The secretary rushed out to shoo children inside. A custodian swooped in yelling "get into the classrooms" at kids in the play yard.

Their efforts stopped gunman Neal from getting inside Rancho Tehama Elementary School during the rampage that left five people dead before police killed Neal in the small community of Rancho Tehama Reserve, 130 miles north of Sacramento.

Witnesses say Neal rammed into the gate of the school that teaches kindergarteners through fifth graders before getting out with a semi-automatic rifle. He riddled many of the tan and teal portable classrooms with bullets before trying repeatedly to get into a classroom where more than a dozen kindergarten students cowered inside.

Neal "tried and tried and tried and tried to get into the kindergarten door," but it was locked, said Randy Morehouse, the district's maintenance and operations head.

After failing to get into the classroom, Neal went to the back side of the cafeteria and reloaded, Morehouse said. He came onto the playground and shot at a passing car before running back to his vehicle and driving off.

Fitzpatrick declined to discuss the details of the lockdown procedure designed to protect people until law enforcement officers or administrators declare the area safe.

Don Bridges, president of the National Association of School Resource Officers, said that since the 1999 Columbine High School shooting, virtually every school district in the country has adopted and regularly practices an emergency plan that includes lockdown drills.

He said administrators regularly put them into action when anything involving police — shootings, manhunts, bank robberies — are happening nearby.

In a full-blown lockdown, classroom doors are locked, lights turned off and blinds drawn. Students silently line walls or crouch to avoid being seen by an intruder.

Fitzpatrick said he met with teachers, aides and staff Wednesday. He said they did not want to talk to reporters and did not want their names made public.

"I am brokenhearted about the boy who was injured, but I am truly grateful we are not suffering any higher penalty," he said.

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AP reporter Carolyn Thompson contributed from Buffalo, New York. Har reported from San Francisco.