A Pennsylvania school district has given its teachers 16-inch baseball bats as a reminder to fight back in response to the deadly school shooting in Parkland, Florida, in February, the Erie Times-News reported Tuesday.
Millcreek Township School District superintendent William Hall said he does not expect its 500 teachers to face a gunman with a small bat, but it could be used if there's no other choice, the newspaper said.
"The bats are more symbolic than anything," Hall told the Times-News, who gave out the bats during a training session Monday. "However, we do want to have one consistent tool to have at somebody's disposal in a classroom in the event they have to fight.
"It's not about just hiding and waiting. There are options, and one of those is to fight," Hall continued.
Jon Cacchione, president of the Millcreek Education Association, the union representing district teachers, told the newspaper that the baseball bats remind teachers that they should fight as a last resort.
"It's to make people comfortable with the idea that they can attack and not simply go into hard lockdown and just hide, as we'd been told in our training up to this point," Cacchione said, per the Times-News.
On Feb. 14, Nikolas Cruz, 19, allegedly walked into his former school, Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School and opened fire with an AR-15, killing 17 people and wounding 17 others, according to Fox News. He faces the death penalty if convicted, the network said.
Last month, the White House promised to help provide "rigorous firearms training" to some schoolteachers in response to the shooting, according to The Washington Post. The idea of arming some teachers with firearms has been challenged by the National Education Association, the country's largest teachers lobby, among other groups, the Post added.
Hall told Erie News Now that the bats were just one of several initiatives in the works to ensure student safety, including a concrete barrier around the high school walkway, and additional security measures at each entrance.
Erie News Now wrote that the district conducted an online survey to see if the public supports the idea of arming select staff members with guns, if it becomes legal in Pennsylvania.
"We thought just putting that one question out there would give us an idea how the community felt," Hall told Erie News Now. "It was about 70 percent to 30 percent that people would favor that, but we're not really actively planning that right now."
Hall told Erie News Now that it cost the district about $1,800 to purchase the bats.
© 2026 Newsmax. All rights reserved.