Aerial photo of North Penn High School, center, with district transportation garage at top center, North Montco Technical Career Center at top left, and former WNPV Radio site at top right, as seen in NPTV video “NPHS – A Building By Community.” (Screenshot of NPTV video)
Sunday night call from police triggered security, says superintendent
North Penn officials gave a glimpse on Monday night into how they responded to a reported threat against the district’s high school over the weekend.
“Last night, 9 o’clock on a Sunday night, we get a phone call from Towamencin police, that they received a 911 call, from an anonymous source, alleging that they saw a threat online,” said district Superintendent Todd Bauer.
“Typically, when there’s a threat posted online regarding an act in one of our schools, it spreads very, very quickly. I get many emails, the principal of said building gets many emails, and we’re very quick to find out: what was the post, where did it come from? In this case, we had none of that detail,” he said.
District Coordinator of Safe Schools Brandon Rhone immediately contacted administrators to let them know about the call, Bauer told the board’s safe schools committee meeting on Monday night, and he then passed on word to school board members as security staff sprung into action.
“In collaboration with the police, and a third party that’s able to survey social media at large, across multiple platforms, we were able to conclude that this was perhaps a hoax, or a prank call. But we took all precautions necessary,” Bauer said.
Within roughly 30 minutes of the initial call, according to the superintendent, district communications staff drafted an email sharing as much info as possible with roughly 3,000 district families, while Rhone and security staff developed a plan to add security staff, police, and mobile weapons detection systems in place in time to open schools the following day, despite not finding any such threat online.
“I’m pleased to say we had a smooth start this morning. At no point did the police, or school district or security, believe there to be a real threat, but we still took those steps,” Bauer said.
Student liaison to the committee Giuseppe Schiano Di Cola said he thought the district did a “great job,” adding he thought “it was great to see everybody working together this morning when I walked in the building. And nothing happened, which is great, as usual you guys were on top of things.”
School board President Cathy McMurtrie asked if staff and administrators hold “some type of debrief” after such calls to determine what went well and what didn’t, and Rhone said that process is already underway.
“The technology that’s out there, unfortunately allows some people to cause these types of disruptions, and make these types of calls, and it gives them total anonymity,” he said of the threat.
“Two years ago, when we were chasing down a potential threat, the source platform that was being used was in a different country, and they don’t have to abide by the same laws. People who do this kind of thing, know that these platforms are out there, and it does make it challenging and difficult for us,” Rhone said.
North Penn’s school board next meets at 7 p.m. on March 11 and the safe schools committee next meets at 5:45 p.m. on March 24; for more information visit www.NPenn.org.
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