North Penn administrators propose district-run public safety department with sworn school police officers

Dr. Bauer told the Safe Schools Committee in September 2025 that the administration is recommending the district consider reorganizing its Office of Emergency Management and Safe Schools into a Department of Public Safety that would employ sworn school police officers. "Our hope is to present a model of comprehensive public safety department that includes school police officers to best serve our students, staff, and community of the North Penn School District," Dr. Bauer said.

The proposed model would convert five or six current security staff into sworn officers, with a total of six sworn school police officers assigned to secondary buildings and districtwide duties. "We would have six sworn police officers, school police officers who are employed by the North Penn School District," Mr. Roan, the district's director of emergency management and safe schools, said. The presentation said the officers would be able to enforce the Pennsylvania crimes and vehicle codes on district property, investigate incidents on district property "within our capacity," and issue citations for certain offenses instead of calling municipal police.

Committee members and public commenters asked about training, authority, oversight and costs. Mr. Summers, the district's legal advisor, described the required legal steps: the board would first approve the positions and then the district would petition the Montgomery County Court of Common Pleas to appoint individual officers. "Experience has been typically within about a month of a filing for a petition with the court," Summers said, describing the court hearing process.

Administrators said the district would require sworn personnel to meet state police training and certification requirements and would exceed minimum standards for some subjects. Mr. Roan said the district would continue de-escalation, special-education and mental-health training and add scenario-based and firearms-proficiency training beyond minimum state standards. "We would continue de-escalation training," Roan said. "There would be yearly firearms qualification that are required by law, but we would, again, exceed those standards."

On finances, the presentation listed approximate start-up costs to transition current security staff into sworn officers: roughly $250,400 to cover stipends and equipment. Administrators said some equipment costs might be eligible for grants from the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency (PCCD) and other grant sources; they also said some costs could be absorbed within the current 2025–26 budget. Mr. Roan called the timeline to deploy officers by January–February 2026 "accelerated" and later characterized it as "extremely aggressive," telling committee members a spring deployment was more realistic.

Students and community members spoke during public comment. Student representative Grace Chao said she welcomed continued student involvement in any follow-up and praised district security staff for being "very welcoming." Public commenters raised questions about whether citations would appear on student records, insurance and liability, the size of the proposed force, and staff and community engagement. Christine Coyne asked whether citations issued by district officers would be criminal and whether they would remain on a student's permanent record; Dr. Bauer replied that some citations can remain on a record depending on severity and that the district has a youth aid panel that can pursue expungement in some cases.

The Safe Schools Committee voted unanimously to place the proposal on a future full-board work session agenda so the board can consider policy, implementation steps and public input. The motion to send the proposal to the full board passed by unanimous voice vote; the transcript does not record individual roll-call votes.

The committee members and administrators said the next steps would include drafting policy and administrative regulations, preparing job descriptions, completing required training plans and petitioning the Court of Common Pleas for appointment of individual officers if the board approves the model. Mr. Roan and Dr. Bauer told the committee they would bring more detailed cost, staffing and policy schedules to the full board and recommended public forums and additional FAQs to gather community input.

The committee framed the current vote as a request to place the topic before the full elected board for deliberation and decision rather than final approval of the restructuring.