A Pennsylvania school district announced that it would arm the 500 teachers in the district with 16-inch baseball bats as a “last resort” security measure.
Teachers in the Millcreek Township School District got the mini-bats after a day in training for response to school shootings, Erie News Now reported.
"It is the last resort. But it is an option and something we want people to be aware of," Superintendent William Hall told Erie News Now.
"Unfortunately, we’re in a day and age where one might need to use them to protect ourselves and our kids," Hall said.
Hall said that the district conducted a poll that found that about 70 percent of people in the district would favor arming some staff members with guns if that became legal in Pennsylvania.
The bats will be locked up in each classroom, the Erie News Now report said.
"This is a tool to have in the event we have nothing else. Part of the formula now is to fight back, and so I think the bats that were provided for the staff were symbolic of that," said Jon Cacchione, the Millcreek Education Association president, in the report.
In March, another school district in Pennsylvania also has taken a non-gun-related approach to providing weapons for students and teachers, by providing every classroom in the district with 5-gallon buckets of river stones.
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