Armed Security at Pennridge?

Kiley Watson, Staff Writer|March 4, 2019

The discussion of armed security has recently received a great amount of the district’s attention. Often times when a topic is heavy, miscommunication is bound to happen, causing rumors to emerge and spread around the community. After attending the school board meeting, reaching out to security, and contacting the superintendent, here is official information about the topic of armed security.

 

Pennridge is interested in bringing in armed security guards to the district. However, there are different approaches as to how this may or may not occur. There are two different types of officers that the district is interested in, including an SRO (school resource officer) and an SPO (school police officer). An SRO is an officer that would visit and patrol the school full-time, but would not be considered an employee of Pennridge. They would be from a local police department, in this case, Pennridge Regional. An SPO is an officer that would be a full time employee through Pennridge.

 

“Our recommendation from the administration of the board is to keep three full-time [security officers], but make two of them school police officers and add a third part-time to the current two part-time”, stated Dr. Bolton at the school board meeting on Monday, February 25th. The benefits to this scenario would include more armed security and save money. However, these school police officers would replace two of the three current unarmed security guards. The current security guards would be able to apply for the two positions, but will not be guaranteed the spot. While I talked with both Mr. Branch and Mr. Fry, they explicitly told me that they plan on applying for the job positions if the school board passes the idea.

 

There will be another school board meeting next month held on March 25th, where the topic of armed security will be discussed once again. Anyone is welcome to attend the meeting, as well as make public comment at the beginning or end of the meeting. It is unsure if the school board will vote on the issue the night of the meeting, but it will be discussed further. Stay tuned for a possible follow-up article on the matter.