North Penn policy committee recommends first reading of calendar, emergency-preparedness and law-enforcement MOU updates

The North Penn School District Policy Committee on a voice vote recommended three PSBA‑aligned policy updates for first reading: policy 803 (school calendar), policy 805 (emergency preparedness and response) and policy 805.1 (relations with law enforcement agencies).

The changes chiefly reflect recent revisions in the Pennsylvania School Code and PSBA model language. "These are PSBA updates, and relatively straightforward, mostly based upon changes to statutes," Mr. Summers said, describing the package as aligning district policies with state law.

The school‑calendar amendment updates language about the traditional 180‑day year to reflect current law that allows a district to meet required instructional time either by days or by hours: 900 hours at the elementary level and 990 hours at the secondary level. "Schools may provide the amount of instruction students require by either meeting the 180‑day requirement, or they could meet the 900 hours or 990 hours of instruction," Mr. Summers said. District staff clarified that North Penn typically schedules 180 student days and 191 teacher days and that the district’s schedule still exceeds the statutory hourly requirements.

Policy 805 (emergency preparedness and response) was updated to specify required staff training hours in school‑safety topics. Mr. Summers said the changes "provide a little bit more specificity in terms of the training that school staff have to receive for emergency preparedness" and reflect training the district has been providing in practice.

Policy 805.1 replaces the phrase "local police department" with "law enforcement agency" to reflect jurisdictions that may involve state police or other agencies. The policy also updates the required content and signatories of memoranda of understanding between the district and law enforcement. "Those MOUs are signed by the superintendent, the principal of each school building, and then the chief of police for each department that has jurisdiction over each of our schools," Mr. Summers said, adding the MOUs are intended to clarify which incidents are reported to law enforcement, how law enforcement will respond, and how the district and agencies reconcile incident reports for state reporting.

Dr. Bauer described the district’s data alignment process with law enforcement: "We actually have an exchange of information with reporting systems ... and then we meet with them quarterly to align our reports with them." He said the district provides annual incident information to the state and meets quarterly with each municipality to ensure data alignment.

Committee chair Mr. Resch moved to recommend the three policies for first reading; a motion to approve the recommendation was made and seconded, and the committee approved by voice vote. The committee did not adopt the policies; the action forwards the policies for first reading and further consideration by the board.

The policy committee noted no additional informational items. The next policy committee meeting is scheduled for March 24 at 5 p.m.

Notes: the committee’s action was a recommendation for first reading; no final adoption or numeric roll call was recorded in the transcript.