A superintendent at a Pennsylvania school district says he will equip every one of the district's 200 classrooms with buckets of rocks that students and teachers could use "as a last line of defense" in the event of a school shooting.
Blue Mountain School District Supervisor Dr. David Henlsel said the buckets were just one of the measures put in place this year. Other steps taken by school officials to keep their kids safe also include security cameras, secured building entrances and fortified classroom doors.
A massacre last month at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland Florida that left 17 people dead has reawakened the debate over gun control and what measures that needed to be taken in order to keep schoolchildren safe.
Hundreds of thousands of students, teachers, parents and supporters are expected to take to the streets on Saturday for rallies in Washington D.C. and cities around the country for "March For Our Lives," a series of demonstrations that will call for tighter gun laws.
Helsel first discussed the rock buckets in testimony delivered at the Pennsylvania state house in Harrisburg last week.
“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,” Superintendent David Helsel said to the House Education Committee in Harrisburg.
Helsel says the five-gallon buckets of river stones grew out of his reading about an active-shooter defense program known as ALICE, which instructs people on how to handle an active-shooting situation. ALICE, which stands for "Alert, Lockdown, Inform, Counter, Evacuate" teaches students and staff how to survive an active shooting situation by making people aware of their situation in a situation where seconds count.
Teachers, students and staff at Blue Mountain School District have gone through active shooter training and routinely hold evacuation drills for active-shooter simulations. Helsel says the district does not plan on arming teachers with firearms.