Millcreek Schools, in the suburbs Erie, Pennsylvania, decided to arm all 500 of its teachers with baseball bats, CBS reported. The decision comes as a response to the school shooting in Parkland.
Superintendent of the school, William Hall, said that arming teachers with bats “is the last resort, but it is an option and something we want people to be aware of.” Hall told CBS that the move was mostly symbolic, but “we're in a day and age where one might need to use them to protect ourselves and our kids.”
According to NBC, Hall’s goal was to revise the district’s school shooting response plan so that they have other options besides “hiding and waiting.”
The president of Millcreek Education Association, Jon Cacchione, told CBS, “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.”
NBC said that this comes after a different Pennsylvania school made headlines for arming their teachers and students with buckets of rocks as a means of protection.