Eighth-grade class receives shocking graduation gift: bullet-proof ballistic shields

The eighth-grade graduates at a middle school in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, received a rather sobering gift for graduation: bullet-proof ballistic shields.

What are the details?

WXTF-TV reported that St. Cornelius School gave the students the unlikely graduation presents, which were provided by a local company. The company, Unequal Technologies, designed and developed the Safe Shield, which, according to WXTF, can be slipped into a backpack.

Rob Vito, the company's president, said, "Handguns are useless against a product like this. Shotguns are useless against a product like this."

The company donated the shields to St. Cornelius's 2018 graduating class. Twenty-five shields were also donated to school faculty.

Watching the children's faces in the WXTF's video report below, it seems clear that the students were at least a little taken aback by the gifts.

One student told the station, "I never thought I’d need this."

A great-grandparent of one of the students said, "You hear about these school shootings almost weekly, and I can't believe that's where we are in our nation today, but that's the fact."

Principal Barbara Rosini said that she'll do whatever she has to in order to keep the children at her school safe.

"Anything that we can do to protect our children and our staff, that’s what we have — that's my job, to try to protect them and I try to do the best I can," Rosini said, according to the station.