A Pennsylvania school district is arming its roughly 500 teachers with 16-inch baseball bats in an effort to boost security in the wake of the Parkland school shooting.
Teachers in the Millcreek Township School District, located in the the state’s northwest corner, received the mini bats after a training day on how to respond to school shootings, reported Erie News Now.
“It is the last resort,” Superintendent William Hall told Erie News Now. “But, it is an option and something we want people to be aware of.”
The bats, which will be kept locked in each classroom, are mostly “symbolic,” Hall said.
“Unfortunately, we’re in a day and age where one might need to use them to protect ourselves and our kids,” Hall told the outlet.
A school district representative did not immediately respond to HuffPost’s request for comment.
Last month, another Pennsylvania school district announced it was equipping each classroom with five-gallon buckets of rocks.
“If an armed intruder attempts to gain entrance to any of our classrooms, they will face a classroom full of students armed with rocks, and they will be stoned,” Blue Mountain School District Superintendent David Helsel told the state House Education Committee.
Mass shooters, including the one whose Feb. 14 attack on a Parkland, Florida, high school killed 17 people, often have equipped themselves with assault-style rifles capable of firing dozens of rounds in seconds. Such high-powered, military-style weapons would render mini baseball bats and stones unlikely defensive tools.