Pennsylvania School District Arms 500 Teachers With Mini Baseball Bats

Hall says the bats are primarily "symbolic", but they are now an option for teachers to use, should they need to fight back in a school shooting.

A Pennsylvania school district is arming its teachers with baseball bats in the wake of the school shooting in Parkland, Florida.

The perennial issue of school shootings has taken renewed significance after the February 14 massacre in Parkland, Florida, that left 17 people at a local high school dead. "But, it is an option and something we want people to be aware of".

President meets with governors to discuss mass shootings, gets pushback on his proposal to train and arm qualified members of school faculty and staff from Washington's Democratic Gov. Jay Inslee; chief White House correspondent John Roberts reports.

Each teacher in the school district will be given a small bat and receive training on how to respond to a potential school shooting, Erie News Now reported on Tuesday.

The Millcreek School District in Erie County says its 500 teachers will be armed with 16-inch bats.

Those discrepancies indicate that the region's commitment to improving public schools and higher education has eroded since the Great Recession that started in 2007, the study said.

The region's leaders need to "face the reality that our future is going to be more pluralistic and understand that talent is embedded in those very populations that might look different from the majority", Dodson said.

The bats will cost the district about $1,800 to purchase and they will remain locked up in each classroom. But, since the lawmakers haven't taken any satisfactory corrective measures despite the nationwide outcry, it is only fair that schools are at least taking initiatives to ensure students' safety.

Parkland school officials made a decision to require all students to carry clear plastic backpacks as one safety measure - and was mocked by students who saw it as a meaningless gesture over real gun reform. He told the paper that "70 percent to 30 percent" would favor the move, but the district is "not really actively planning that right now".

A rural school district in Pennsylvania also grabbed headlines last month for saying it would give buckets of river rocks to teachers to potentially ward off school shooters.