School safety assessment completed

200+ recommendations but none urgent

LANSDALE » A school safety study that’s been in the works for nearly a year is almost complete.

North Penn’s Safe Schools committee heard a preview of that study in late July, with a long todo list but nothing critical to address immediately.

“There was nothing they brought to us that’s an emergency, ‘This needs to be fixed right now, before we leave,’” said district Coordinator of Safe Schools Chris Doerr.

“We’ve had many conversations with them, and I think in each one they started it by telling us how impressed they were with North Penn as an organization, and our school safety efforts,” he said.

Starting in 2020 the safe schools committee had discussed hiring an outside firm to do a formal school safety assessment, building on projects to measure and enhance student safety such as an online school safety data dashboard and district climate surveys on physical, emotional and behavioral safety topics. In August of that year the specifications of the study were finalized, that November the board sought formal proposals, and a contract was awarded in December 2021 to Margolis Healy, a nationwide firm whose representatives outlined their duties to the committee in February 2022. School board committee chairman Jonathan Kassa works for Margolis Healy as a vice president of regulatory compliance, and had worked for that company from 2011 to 2015, according to a post by that company dated May 2.

This past March, Doerr gave an update on in-person visits to the district from that firm, and on July 25 Doerr told the committee that the firm was onsite for a total of two weeks, held over 140 interviews with district staff, visited every district building, and delivered a 90-plus page report.

“That report, in large part, is confidential, because it calls out specific items that pertain to safety and security within the district,” he said.

The full findings of the report had been shared with the board in an executive session days earlier, but an executive summary

has been publicly posted in the board’s meeting materials, and highlights the results and focus areas the study identified.

“One of those items is really the standards and policies that go along with our security program here in the district,” Doerr said.

“While we have many things we do, and many things that are well-known about how we operate our safe school system, and surveillance systems, much of that is not formally codified within a document that can be referred to by, for example, a new administrator who might be joining the district,” he said.

Putting those standards and practices for each facility into written documents, and having all of the district’s security personnel “reading from the same sheet of music” will be a priority, Doerr added, along with resuming inperson security staff training, drills, and threat assessment work as the COVID-19 pandemic ends. The report also listed a total of 248 “individual building-specific observations” needed across the district, and Doerr said his security staff will work with the board and his counterparts in the district’s facilities department to prioritize those.

Superintendent Todd Bauer added that the team from Margolis Healy had compliments for Doerr and his security staff, and said they’ll work closely together to set priorities.

“I do think we’re ahead of the curve in many, many regards. That does not mean we’re perfect,” he said.

They’ll need to do so quickly though: Bauer also announced that he was “absolutely distraught that Mr. Doerr will be moving on from the North Penn School District,” and gave the word to district administrators in mid-July that the security head will be departing from the job he’s held since 2017 to work for his family business.

“There are things that need to be addressed, and I have tasked Mr. Doerr with, before he leaves, his ticket out of here is to prioritize those items, and set a timeline, to be shared in an executive session” with the full board and/or safe schools committee, Bauer said.

Board member Cathy Wesley thanked both for their reports to the committee, and for working with the consultant on the assessment, telling Doerr she felt it was “a reflection of what you’ve done for our district.” Bauer added that he’ll likely set up an executive session in the near future with the entire board to discuss the security recommendations, and talks on implementing the recommendations will continue in both committees.

“None of these things are urgent, but they’re all important, because they deal with student safety,” Bauer said.

No formal action on the report was taken, since the committee did not have a quorum to take any formal action during the July 25 meeting.

North Penn’s full board next meets at 6 p.m. on Aug. 9 and the safe schools committee next meets at 5:45 p.m. on Aug. 29; for more information visit www. NPenn.org