Safe Schools Information & Resources

North Penn School District strives to provide open and transparent information about the safety of our schools. The information and resources on this page are provided for those who would like to gain a better understanding of North Penn’s school safety programs. 

Oversight

North Penn's school safety and security efforts are guided by the board of directors through the Safe Schools Committee. More information about the committee can be found here.
 

School Safety Data

All Pennsylvania schools are required to report school safety statistics to the Pennsylvania Department of Education’s Office for Safe Schools at the conclusion of each school year. Before being reported, information is reviewed for accuracy and certified by each school principal and each police chief having jurisdiction. This information is available publicly on the PA Safe Schools Online Data Portal for each year since reporting began in 1999. It is important to note that the reporting requirements set out by PDE have evolved each year. Beginning in 2019 the Department of Education directed school entities to report additional incidents as follows:
 
“All discipline incidents resulting in suspension or expulsion must be submitted, regardless of the special education status of the student. If an infraction does not align to one of the 46 numeric Safe Schools infraction codes, it shall be aligned to either an Academic Code of Conduct or a Student Code of Conduct discipline infraction type.”
 
Information about the types of infractions that could lead to suspension or expulsion can be found in the NPSD Student Discipline Code. This change in reporting requirements increased the number of qualifying incidents, and therefore led to an overall increase in total incidents reported. To aid in the analysis of North Penn’s reported data, staff has created a data dashboard which can be found here:
 

NPSD Safe Schools Dashboard


North Penn has further partnered with “Safe Schools for Alex,” a non-profit advocacy organization founded by Mr. Max Schachter, whose mission is to provide the most current school safety best practices and resources to students, parents, school districts and law enforcement so that all children can learn in a safe environment. Safe Schools for Alex has developed public data dashboards for several states including Pennsylvania. The Safe Schools for Alex dashboard for Pennsylvania can be found here:

Safe Schools for Alex Pennsylvania Dashboard