The condition of a 12-year-old girl shot during a rampage at an Amish school in Lancaster County has improved.

Children's Hospital of Philadelphia reported that the girl, who has arm and leg injuries, is now in serious condition. She had previously been listed in critical condition.

An 8-year-old girl with neck and arm injuries and a 10-year-old girl with a head injury remain in critical condition at the same hospital.

Two other girls wounded in the school in Nickel Mines were being treated at another hospital, which is now not releasing updates on their conditions. A report yesterday listed one of them in critical condition and one of them in serious condition.

Five other girls died when Charles Carl Roberts IV entered the school Monday morning, lined up 10 girls after letting boys and adults leave, and shot them execution style.

Funerals were to begin tomorrow morning at family homes.

Naomi Ebersol's will be at 8 a.m.; Marian Fisher's is at noon; and the service for sisters Mary and Lena Miller is at 1 p.m.

The funeral for Anna Mae Stoltzfus will be at 9 a.m. Friday.

Burial for all will be at Bart Amish Cemetery in Bart Township.

Gov. Ed Rendell said said today he would ask Amish elders if they want state police protection from a Kansas church group that planned to demonstrate at the funerals.

Speaking at an unrelated event in the Capitol, Mr. Rendell also asked the members of the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kan., as well as members of the public and news media, to allow the Amish to conduct their funerals in privacy.

Later in the day, the church group announced it was dropping plans to protest in Lancaster County.

The Westboro Baptist Church routinely pickets military funerals, saying that American servicemen and women are dying overseas because God is displeased that the United States tolerates homosexuals.

In June, Rendell signed legislation into Pennsylvania law designed to restrict Westboro Baptist Church's picketing by making it a crime to demonstrate near a funeral or memorial service in Pennsylvania.

More details in tomorrow's Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.