‘We got nothing’: Parents sound off on North Penn schools’ report on Pennbrook assault

A long-awaited report on an April assault at Pennbrook Middle School has left parents with more questions than answers.

“I just think this was a complete waste of money, and there’s no accountability. We got nothing out of this. I’m very disappointed,” said parent Stephanie Palovcak.

Parents have pressed the school board and administrators over safety and security since April 18, the day after an alleged attack by one student on another at Pennbrook Middle School that left the victim hospitalized.

The next night, students and parents detailed the attack and grilled the board on what they saw as failures of the district’s security efforts, and asked for immediate steps to increase school safety. In subsequent meetings, the district and board vowed to take steps including hiring an outside investigator to examine the incident, the district’s response, and any shortfalls or recommendations for further action.

The long-awaited public report came on Monday night, when superintendent Todd Bauer and solicitor Kyle Somers outlined the findings they can, and can't, make public.

"We will not, and cannot speak to specific students," Bauer said, due to federal regulations protecting student privacy.

"We will not be speaking specifically about a child, or any staff member. Rather, a summary of the investigation itself, and then the recommendations that resulted," he said.

Somers, the solicitor, summarized the bio and qualifications of the outside third-party investigator, the communications to the district in the immediate wake of the incident that vowed to do the investigation, and then the process used to gather firsthand feedback from those involved.

"The the third-party investigation was to really do two things: examine the totality of the incident itself, but then also to offer analysis and recommendations for consideration moving forward," Somers said.

"These interviews took place and they included students, parents, teachers, support staff, and administrators — really all aspects of our school community were included and involved in this investigation," he said.

The firm also reviewed student records, and analyzed surveillance footage and provided the school board with a report of their findings in early October, a meeting Somers said "nearly two hours with the school board, answering questions, providing a minute-by-minute breakdown of the incidents themselves that occurred." That full analysis "is not going to be shared, due to legal and student confidentiality concerns," due to the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act and other confidentiality restrictions, the attorney said.

"The takeaway is: How can we, as a school system, put things in place to reduce the likelihood that incidents occur, and make the school as safe of an environment as possible?" he said.

Report recommendations

Recommendations in the report from the investigator include expanding the placement options "for students who may require a lower student-to-teacher ratio," additional behavioral supports, and/or "increased therapeutic and mental heath supports," according to Somers. The board's education committee has discussed those topics recently, he said, and recommendations include more supports at each school, and outside of schools.

"For students who may need a different setting entirely, what are those placement options? And making sure that the district is as creative as possible in identifying where can students best have their needs be met," he said.

The study also recommends establishing specific expectations for staff "relative to students who, while not yet disciplined, are subject of an ongoing investigation." Each day, Somers said, school administrators or staff investigate certain concerns, and the recommendation asks about the training or expectations for staff on "what to do with students, in terms of where they are located, when they are the subject of a concern that's being looked into."

"Is the concern about a conflict between students, something that requires those students be removed from the school setting completely? Or removed from particular classes they have together? Or not removed at all, because the nature of the concern is not as immediate? This will largely be determined on a case by case basis," he said.

The report also asks that the district examine cellphone use policies, which were changed heading into the current schoolyear, and the investigator found that, in that incident and overall, "clearly cellphone use by students, has an impact, and was having an impact on behaviors that were occurring. So limiting that impact is something that, through clear policies and the enforcement of those policies, is something that's consistent with the recommendations."

Another recommendation involves further examination into the effectiveness of "school safety measures such as the locational placement of school security personnel and school loudspeaker functionality," Somers said, "just ensuring the district is constantly examining where are those resources placed, and are they in the locations where they're needed." In the Pennbrook incident, "there was a quick security response to the incident," so the recommendation is that those procedures and staff levels constantly be reviewed, and for hardware such as loudspeakers some did report "difficulty hearing in a cafeteria, for example, where there were many students and higher noise occurring."

In public comments after the assault, students and parents reported that the school had been placed in a security hold when the incident took place, and some did not learn the hold had been lifted until long after.

    Pennbrook Middle School students, standing in crowd, address the North Penn school board with questions about an alleged attack on a student at Pennbrook during the school board meeting on April 18, 2024. (Credit: Screenshot of NPTV video)
  

"Students who were in the cafeteria were unaware of that, because they weren't able to hear" the hold had been lifted, Somers said, "and that did come out during the investigation: a focus on how to improve communication, so that students are adequately informed, and not kept in a security hold, for example, when they really don't need to be."

Further recommendations include additional training and collaboration among administrators, "relative to the procedures applicable to potential intra-district student transfers, as well as transfers from non-district placements," which Somers said apply to two scenarios: when a student is assigned from one school to another outside of "those natural transition times" like graduating from middle to high school, or transfers from one school to another for academic reasons like accessing a different course option.

The students coming from non-district placements "could be non-district private schools, it could be a special education type setting, there's a wide variety of settings from which students transition into the school district. But making sure there's good collaboration relative to who's coming into the schools," he said.

Final recommendations include "age-appropriate education to students regarding inclusion and acceptance," and "kind of hand-in-hand with that is educating students on the negative and potentially harmful effects of social media on student wellbeing," Somers said. As part of the investigation, student records and communications were reviewed, and "the investigator felt it was important to highlight that having many students together in our settings, it's critical they develop an appreciation and acceptance for one another," and that cellphones can have negative effects.

"Things that are occurring outside of school can certainly spill over into school, through social media, and so trying to be as proactive as possible is really the focus of this particular recommendation," he said.

Superintendent spells out next steps

Bauer then said he felt, early on, "there were decisions made, and thing that happened, of which we were not proud," but the findings of the investigation have shown strengths as well as weaknesses.

"I do feel that the people involved on that day, did what they thought was in the best interests of the students, given the information they had," he said. "Everyone involved on that day, was making the best decisions that they could, based on the information that they had."

Since the April assault, the district has made changes to top administrator job descriptions and responsibilities, and have added "multiple checks and balances on students coming to, or out of, or back to, some of our buildings. There are multiple layers that have been added, to get multiple eyes" on those decisions. District staff have added more checks on discipline and conduct referrals to be automatically sent to Bauer and other administrators, "so there are more eyes on more incidents on a daily basis" than before the assault.

Staff have been added including counselors, psychologists, and special education assistants, plus teachers and security staff, and some programs have been changed including positive behavior instruction and schedule changes at the middle schools. Staff have also added space for elementary school students who need additional support, and added TV monitors in cafeterias that will show notifications if students can't hear loudspeakers.

"We also have the ability to put a notification on every device: every student laptop, every teacher laptop, every screen in the district, we can push a button and get notification of what's going on, to all devices," Bauer said.

Cellphone policies have been changed, climate surveys have been done and the results are being analyzed, and staff have also added new executive session meetings of the safe schools committee "to talk about the higher-profile cases, respecting privacy laws" and discussing certain cases with those board members, he said. Part of the reason the report took so long to discuss publicly was behind-the-scenes, he added: "there were some proceedings with the juvenile courts, that we had to wait for certain things to take place, before we could talk to certain people."

Parents push for specifics

Parents sounded off in public comments, with Don Gallagher asking if the recommendations become policy, would the board make that info public, and for examples of policies to reduce risk of incidents at certain schools; committee chair Jonathan Kassa answered that "any policy we put in place, we will make clear, as relates to this investigation."

    

Palovcak told the committee she was underwhelmed: "This is basically exactly what a lot of us expected from this investigation. This was anything but unbiased," and the recommendations "were commonsense things that should have already been in place," she said.

"Is there any accountability taking place? What about the weeks and the days leading up to the attack? Who allowed certain things to get to this point? And are they being held accountable?"

Jason Lanier questioned why the report was given in a virtual committee meeting just before a holiday, instead of a full board meeting in person at the district office, and said he thought the cellphone policy was "a red herring, in this instance."

"What allowed this person back into school? That's the policy problem. The policy problem allowed an administrator to come along and say 'You know what? We'll just forget what problems this person was having in one middle school, and put them in another middle school. ' Why did that happen?" Lanier said.

He referred to a recent district title IX policy update, which staff and the solicitor said was meant to comply with recent changes at the federal level, and which Lanier and other parents warned could put certain students at risk.

"There was a lot of talk about making the kids feel safe, and yet you turn around and codify men going in women's bathrooms. 'No, it doesn't happen,' but it will happen. You allow it to happen. You put it in policy, boys on girls teams. This is not going to be making things safer. These are bad policies. You continue to pass bad policies, and then you look to clean up the pieces, and have some third-party investigator do a six-month study to find out what happened. What happened is bad policy," he said.

Erin Blanc asked if the presentation would be repeated at a full meeting, and said she didn't hear anything in the findings about holding students accountable for behavior in schools: "When you let students who are out of control, rule the roost, this is what you get."

"Most of us lay people could have made some of these recommendations, and they were predictable. I can't help but notice blame being shifted to social media, and students not being accepted for differences. If that is truly the conclusion, the net was not cast wide enough," she said.

"This investigation should have gone back years and years, and I am now clear that that was not done. Focusing just on this one event and year of school was shortsighted," Blanc said, adding she was "not surprised" by the assault, and "not satisfied by this report at all."

In response to the comments, Bauer said some safeguards have already been added, including additional cameras and security guards, and added counselors and support staff.

"This is not the extent of the investigation. These are some of the public-facing recommendations. Regarding specific timeline, specific students, specific staff members, all the things that occurred: those were shard with the board in an executive session," he said.

And regarding the process, staff said in October they hoped to provide as much as possible in November, and have worked since then to do so.

"This was really distilled down into what is public-facing, and what is not," Bauer said. "This was specific to a student incident, and most of that can't be shared without violating the law."

North Penn's school board next meets at 7 p.m. Monday at the district Educational Services Center, 401 E. Hancock Street; for more information visit www.NPenn.org.

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