001Just make sure we see this here. [clears throat] >> All right, I see my face. So, I'll let it go to Mr. Cass's face. Uh, everything's synced up. Mr. Cass, the meeting is yours. >> Thank you, Mr. Gilmer. I'd like to call to order this October 2025 safe schools committee meeting. And as always, we'll begin with the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Okay, we'll move on to the approval of minutes from September 29th, 2025. Is there a motion? So moved. Second. >> All right. So, uh, with that, are there any comments or questions regarding the minutes? >> Hearing none. All those in favor say I or
002raise your hand. >> I I >> All right. It passes unanimously. Minutes are approved. I would like to thank everyone who's uh joining us either live right now on this feed or certainly uh later. We know people have busy evenings um and different type of uh schedules. So uh we thank you for joining us and engaging and uh hope that you can stay with us throughout the entire meeting. For those of us who uh um for those who wish to join the facilities and operations meeting, which uh typically happens at 7 o'clock, uh if we are running late and bumping up against 7:00 for the safe schools committee meeting, uh just fair warning that the facilities and operations committee will uh begin immediately following the safe schools committee. So, just use those same links. Just
003might take a few minutes there for Mr. Gilmer to get everything fired up, but we'll uh see where tonight takes us timing wise. and I'll try to make another reminder depending on the the time that this ends uh this evening uh that that this committee meeting ends. So, thank you everyone and with that we'll move on to theformational items. Uh Dr. Bower uh a post incident review something the community certainly wants to learn more about uh as as does this board. >> Thank you, Mr. Kasa. And good evening everyone. Um, a special good evening to our student representatives and I just saw that Chief Tim Troxell from the Townson Township Police Department has joined us. Um, Chief has enough meetings to go to on his own, but I did ask if he'd be willing to
004join us uh just to kind of debrief what happened. Uh it has been the practice of this board and specifically this committee when we have a serious incident that occurs in one of our schools we kind of uh bring it forward and talk about it as best we can in this format uh because we believe that the community deserves that. I do want to point out a few things before we begin and before we debrief. First of all, if anyone is joining this meeting and has not had the opportunity uh to view the action meeting from October 23rd, I gave a fairly detailed account of what occurred at the start of that meeting that is posted to our L YouTube channel. Of course, it was streamed live in the moment. Um we had quite a
005few people in the audience, but please go back and review that if there are details missing that um you'd like to know. Next, I also want to say as I said in my emails uh to the school community and then the next day to the larger school district that um our students when they are involved in infractions that could result in discipline, they have due process rights. Um so we are talking about an incident involving a student and I would like to remind our school board directors that serious incidents and matters could come before the board. Um, so you could be in a hearing with a student and have to make a decision. Um, so we certainly won't uh blur the lines with what information we share, but I do recommend that you refrain from
006commenting specifically about the incident, more about the practices, procedures, and things like that. Um, so just sharing that just so everybody knows what why we're sharing what we're sharing at the start of the meeting. Um, and Mr. Summers, please at any point, you're not on my screen right now, but if you just click raise your hand, if you want to interject any legal counsel, you are more than welcome to do so. Um, so I'll start before I turn this over to Mr. Ran and start with the fact that um, as I said in my email communication, as I said the other evening, we were all very disappointed in the incident that happened last week. Um, it's a scary incident and one that I outlined that I have not experienced in my time here in the
007school district. Um, but I am very proud of the way that our folks handled it. And I will speak specifically to Mr. Ran, Mr. Hassler, and Mr. Bernie Jones, head security guard at the high school. Um, they received information. They reported it to the correct people, and that would be to the Townson Township Police Department. They acted swiftly. Um, our police officers reported immediately, as did Mr. own to the site and they were able to find the student, deal with the situation um and then um obviously process it accordingly. Um so I I want to start with that. Since then we've had a number of questions, emails, phone calls, almost all of them, not all, but almost all of them have been productive um thoughtful discourse or conversation about, hey, why didn't you do this
008or could would you consider that? Um there have been some that were not productive and were not supportive. Uh but for the overwhelming majority of them, people brought forward some good points and things for us to consider. Um I did outline a few points the other evening about who we communicate when there are instances of concern for the community and specifically at the high school. Um so we will have a conversation about that later tonight. Mr. Dr. Gilmer will go over go over because some people were saying that they weren't receiving our communications. So he will kind of go through some reminders about how to ensure that you do receive those communications. There was also questions about evolve and our use of the evolve system and uh actually in the policy committee meeting just before
009this we talked about changes to that policy. So we can speak to that. That's bullet item number two. And then item number one here um is just kind of a debrief of the incident itself. Um, so Mr. Ran, I'm going to give a summary of what occurred. Not at length like I did the other night, but give a brief summary of what occurred. Um, and then at that point ask that you kind of delineate some of the emergency procedures and the situational awareness and why we made the decisions that we did. And then Chief, at at any time you feel the need to interject or want to add to the conversation, you're more than welcome. Um, and if anyone has questions for Chief, um, we can certainly do that as well. So, um, on that
010day, this was last Tuesday, nearly a week ago, Mr. Ran received information from the Lansdale Police Department, uh, indicating that someone they were interviewing regarding something that occurred outside of school, shared with them that a student told other students that he had a gun. It was unclear whether or not that was on that day or a previous day. Um, it wasn't clear in that moment. Mr. Ran called the Town Mson Township Police Department cuz that's where North Penn High School resides and they sent officers to the school. Mr. Ran was also in route while he made that phone call. He shared the information with Mr. Jones and Mr. Hassler together um and said, "Hey, this was reported to us. We don't know of a threat. We we don't know that someone's saying they're looking to
011hurt someone, but we do have information that there could be a weapon in school." Um they looked up that student's schedule. but happened to be during the changing of classes. They saw in that student's schedule that he would be traversing from one area of the building to the next and would likely walk past the office. They opened the door and Mr. Jones saw the student. He asked the student to come with him to the security office. He escorted that student through the courtyard, the AEF courtyard as we call it, to get back to the security office where Mr. Ran, uh, Mr. Jones, Mr. Hassler, other security personnel and Townson Township police officers were in the office. Um, conversations ensued between the parent and school district administration. Um, and of course with the student ultimately resulted
012in a search and in turn we found a a firearm. Um, at that point the student was taken into custody by the town of Menson Township Police Department. Um, and we got together all the information into a district-wide communication. Um, we shared that information with high school families and staff in that moment. Uh, that was Tuesday afternoon. Then Tuesday evening, the chief and I spoke on the phone. He shared with me the fact that he was out of the office that day. He was down giving a training, I believe, in the city. and he would be in the office at 6:00 a.m. He would share additional information with me and more specifics, what we could share with the community, what the charges were, all those things. Um, true to his word, as he always seems
013to be, the chief reached out to me at 7 a.m. and said, "I have something for you. I'm about to email it." Um, he provided the statement. I incorporated that statement into my communication to families. And we sent that out um 2530 minutes after um he and I initially spoke. And then later that day around lunchtime, we sent that information to the entire school district community. So like I said, Mr. Ran, there were questions about why did we choose to lock down, why did we choose or not to lock down, excuse me, or do a hold um situationally, why did we make certain decisions, and we said we would get into it a little bit more in this meeting. Uh so let me pause there and recognize that Mr. Ran is going to talk about
014some of the decisions that were made in the moment because he was kind of leading the charge with Mr. Hassler or Mr. Jones. Um, but anybody have any questions on the information I just provided to start? Okay, I'm seeing none. So, uh, Mr. Ran, if you would like to kind of outline what a hold is, what a lockdown is, and why you chose in that moment or you as collectively, I don't mean you, Mr. Ran, made the decision um, not to do so. >> Yeah, thanks for that, Dr. Bower. Um, and good evening, everyone. So, um, couple of things. Uh, anytime you're addressing an emergency situation, a potential emergency situation, um, there are a lot of things that go into decisions that get made, right? And so, um, the environment, what is happening, what moving
015parts, who's involved, um, the personnel from multiple juris or uh, different agencies, right? So we have um our partners at Tal Menson, we have a district folks. And so specifically to this realizing that when the information came to me, the information then and then me speaking with Tom Mincson PD and then getting to Mr. Hassler, Mr. Jones, uh put us in that transition period. And so at that point, right, everybody who who's been inside the high school during a change a change of class realizes the magnitude and the masses that are traversing the hallways at that time. Um, and so based on the information was that it was reported this person has maybe there was communication, but there was not 100% certainty um that that was in fact the case on Tuesday. Um, it was
016talked about. Um so at that point there were hallways were flooded with students. Uh and so fortunately to Dr. B to reiterate Drs. Bower's point about Mr. Jones actually uh intercepted the student uh pretty quickly. Um so the so to answer the question why was there not a hold or why was there not a lockdown? Uh it was because within a matter of minutes uh seconds quite frankly minutes uh Mr. Jones was able to have contact and have that student with him and then began escorting. Typically, when we would put a building in a hold or in a lockdown, um it could be because we are in fact uh actively looking for someone and trying to find them. So, we're trying to limit the movement um so that when we can check a particular space,
017we know that that space um is verified and we can move on to the next space. In this particular case, the timing and the way at which it happened, the the situation did not call for a hold or a lockdown because we had had the individual that we were indeed looking for. Uh so there was at that point no need to disrupt the rest of the building. Um I would say that um to give an example of where a situation would dictate maybe we would still do it was if we were looking for an additional person and we had not immediately been able to access that person then maybe the decision would have been made to go into a hold to restrict movement so that we can go find that person. However, that was not
018the case in this particular situation. The information that was received by me was we were looking for one particular individual and that individual was uh therefore accounted for with Mr. Jones. Um and so that is this particular case and it is important that as you know we do our training in in the school system in the district um helping the community understand that every situation will present its its own response. It will present its own way of what we do or what we don't do. Um, and it's all going to be based on what is happening and what are the dyn dynamics of that particular situation. Um, there really is not a one-sizefits-all that says no matter what you always do A or no matter what you always do B. [clears throat] Um, that's not
019the case in in handling um emergencies or or other type events because there are always nuances and specifics to each eventual uh each individual case that we may address. Um, and so that is that is the reason why that took place the way it did in this particular case. Uh, is because we had already accounted for the the student that we were looking for. Um, and so I hope that helps uh some folks in the community uh understand why that decision was made. Um, and and so now you can kind of put it all together. >> Mr. R, I also just wanted to >> to gain some clarity. So what you described that was was happening rather instantaneously. It's my understanding that that concurrently that's where our partners at Fmenson Police Department were also acting.
020So this wasn't one and then the other. These things were happening a bit more seamlessly or or is that not the case? They no they they were um you know I I I can tell you without a doubt unequivocally um the the communication between the school district and the six municipalities, the police departments, um is is topnotch. Um you know, one of the things that took place prior to me getting here was the ability uh to communicate directly with them. Um, and so there have been times where we've had we've done that uh to expedite getting information to them uh may be while they're in route um or they're on scene uh right because they have county radios, we have school district radios, but I have a county radio so I have the ability to
021get directly to them um to to relay information. Um, and so that's again like the timing of all this kind of that's how we're able to work so seamlessly because of those relationships and the ability to uh communi have direct communication. Um, and so it was very quick and and again as as they I shared the information with Mr. Hassler, Mr. Jones, they immediately went out uh because the bell had rung and uh Mr. Jones then was able to see the student. The student absolutely complied again based on those relationships um and and came to the the uh security office. Um one additional thing that I wanted to provide is um there was uh someone asked a question about messaging and I know we're going to get to that in the third item here this
022evening, but the message that was sent that day um after you know, the the situation had been resolved. The student was in custody. Um, and we got the communication prepared. That message was sent to 9,518 email addresses. Um, all the parents, staff, so if you think roughly 3,100 students, uh, the number of contacts that they all have, some of them have multiple email addresses. So, it went out to a significant amount of people. Um, and that's and it came from Mr. Hassler and Mr. Ran. That is our typical protocol where we send uh information from the building principal typically and from Mr. Ran cuz they're the ones involved with the situation in that moment. Um you know we're helping them draft it because obviously they are busy but they're providing us the information and then
023ultimately they give the final approval because they know the facts as they were there. Um, so that communication went out on Tuesday afternoon and then the next communication after the chief and I, as I said at the start here, had the time to kind of connect and get all the information accurate, which is so important, especially in a situation where there is not an imminent danger. Um, the situation had been handled. It's really important to us that we get everything uh correct and accurate. So really appreciate the chief providing the information to me. Um, and he was very forthcoming with that information. Um, and that went out, like I said, at 7:30 the next morning. So, I'll pause here and just ask Chief Troxel. You don't don't feel compelled to just talk to Phil Space,
024but if you have anything to add or anything we missed, please feel free. >> No, I I think you guys pretty much hit a lot of it. Um, I would just reiterate what Dr. Bower says even to this point. Right now, we're this is still currently being investigated. um and and certain things at least from our perspective I don't we don't have anything to do or much control over school district policy or procedure how you handle those things but just to the detail of what goes on in these types of situations you know it it's not only an issue of what happened in the event that's immediate charges the possession of the firearm on school property and things of that nature but we also have to be looking into things like where did where did
025the student get this weapon? Um who knew about that? When did they know about that? Uh this information was gleaned from another neighboring jurisdiction uh through an investigation into something completely unrelated to this. So we have to be very careful because we're still trying to interview people to talk to people. We kind of have similar restrictions to the school district. We don't, you know, with it being a juvenile, we can't just talk to them. There has to be a parent present. there has to be permission from an attorney uh in the school environment. You actually take on that responsibility if the parents aren't there in local apparent. So um but there always has to be those protections in place for the the individual involved because they do have due process and rights. So um and
026getting all that information together and I I can't stress that enough as well just on the timing because I know Dr. Bower has been getting beat up about it a little bit and um number one you have to make sure you have it right and number two you know people live we deal with it as well in stuff non-school related we people live in an instantaneous messaging kind of world where they want I want the information right now uh and sometimes not only do we not have it but now we have to put it together in such a way that's understandable that's clear that's concise and that has the proper information. Uh, and that doesn't happen in five minutes. Um, so you know, I I watch social media. I see the comments and they're like,
027"Well, this happened here and this didn't come out till here." Well, you have to gather that information. You have to handle the incident at hand. Make sure that that's stabilized. Then you have to gather information. Then you have to put it together into your message before you can get your message out. And all of that, unfortunately, does take time. Uh, and we do try to do that as quickly as possible. Um, and there are circumstances sometimes beyond our control. I I also uh teach and happen to be in Ka Haken teaching a countywide class on leadership that day. So until I even got on a break from the class and saw that my phone, which was silenced while I was teaching, was blowing up from my second in command to tell me about this incident,
028I didn't even know it had been happening. uh let alone have the availability to talk and make sure the information I was getting from our side of things was proper that I could give it to Dr. Bower. So, um I I know most of the discussion so far has been about school procedure and what's going on with the school and and obviously we try to help work within those parameters when we get there. Um there are some things that that we do that the school personnel can't. Uh, and you know, in any situation, anytime we have a serious incident on the police side of things, we always go back and say, "We're never perfect. What could we do better? Let's identify problems. Let's fix them. Let's try to make it so that it's smoother, so
029that it's not a concern. So that things that we might not have considered before, we now know we have to think about, and you're always trying to improve the process." So, we always actually kind of look at things with a critical eye. Um, and a lot of people think that that's just pointing out, well, you screwed up, you screwed up, you screwed up. And it's not. Like, like Mr. Ran said, these are all individual rapidly evolving situations and none of them are the same. So, it's more just saying how do we make sure that we do this better next time with anything we can think to improve upon. So, um, I I will I just want to reiterate that as far as what Dr. Bower and Mr. Corona have been saying and I I won't
030keep jabbering just a jabber, but uh if questions do come up about our involvement and how that interaction was, I'll be sure to weigh in again. But I just I thought it was important to point out that that this these situations don't happen instantly. A lot of thought goes into it and um and before the messaging comes out, there has to be some thought that goes into it. Uh and I think it it's it's important for people to bear that in mind. Thank you, Chief. I appreciate that. Uh, President Mc Merry. >> Thanks, Dr. Bower. Um, I don't know if it's Mr. Ron or Chief Troxel. To help understand the definition and division of responsibility between reasonable cause and probable cause in terms of who takes what action, please. >> Yeah, I can I can
031address that and Mr. Summers uh probably can as well. So the threshold for a search of students is different um between police and the school district. It is uh if it is reasonable to suspect that a student has broken a rule or a law, the school district has the authority to search the student. Uh Chief Troxel's threshold is a little bit different. Um it is not reasonable, it's probable. Um, so there is a different threshold and we have a a little bit more uh liberty to conduct student searches because we are in a school environment. Um, so they're always there and I I would like to reiterate that the the police officers were on site. We conducted the search. They were on site um to handle in the event that something was found. Um, Mr.
032Summers, anything to add? Did I do okay there? >> No, you got it. Okay. >> Thank you. Great question. Any other questions on this? And if not, >> I I just want to make sure as well when when uh Mr. Ran is describing the situation and and how that unfolds and as it as it will for any other future situation, right? There are those variables which are different and u we need to be able to adjust properly. It's it's part of why I know the Alice training there's been a methodical um ramping up of of that training program in our schools over the years and that's hitting a new level. But also um it appeared to me um Mr. own that when you were mentioning certain aspects about definitions hold or whatever the next step
033might be or all clear that's grounded in in really the standard response protocol for I love you guys foundation right so anyone could look that up this isn't something it's tailored for North Penn school district but I want to make sure that the community understands this is grounded in some some long-term um you contemporary standards and expectations when it comes down to to uh reacting to these type of situations. >> That is correct. >> I I I really would um [snorts] uh you know would like to hear from staff uh as well who go through these type of trainings and and we do have that feedback loop and have had those conversations here at the safe schools committee. But really any of the information that we're discussing here today um you know really would would
034implore um request that [clears throat] the community look up that information and um have an understanding about what we're doing but more importantly so you could also ask us questions so we can improve um you know like Chief Troxel said um in this continuous cycle of of improvement um we're not able to do that by thinking we see it all. So um it does take all of us. That's why we appreciate those who are attending and viewing this later tonight. Uh with that, uh Dr. Bowers, is there anything else in theformational items as we proceed? >> Yeah. Next, uh we will talk about evolve. Uh Mr. Ran, I believe you have a few slides to share regarding evolve. But u before we do, I will give a bit of a recap from the policy committee
035meeting and uh chairperson, Mr. fresh um guided us through a conversation just prior to this. Mr. Summers talked through some of those policy changes. I did share last week at the meeting that we had discussed changing this policy. We've discussed it a few times. Um but we actually made revisions to the policy that morning prior to the incident occurring. And the the policy read in a way that it authorized a search and you can't just search students because you want to there has to be as president Mc Merry pointed out reasonable suspicion that they are breaking a school rule. So it brings to question is scanning using a weapons detection system like Evolve is that a search or is it not? And so when we adopted the policy initially, we adopted it with the understanding
036that we would utilize the weapons detection system for one of the following three reasons. Number one was randomly. So we would deploy it randomly throughout the school district to different schools. Uh two is when we have largecale events with a number of visitors to our campus such as uh large events in the stadium, concerts, plays, musicals, um proms, there are a lot of guests and people who are not our students at those events. And lastly, when there is actually concern or a threat. So if we receive information that there could be uh someone posts something on social media or there's a safe to say tip or somebody reports something in the evening and we haven't had the time to investigate it um we would set it up for um screening in the morning at that
037building which we have done that quite a few times. So those were the three reasons initially u that for utilizing the evolve system. We've used it over the course of the last year. It has gone well. Certainly, it has taken training and familiarity with students and staff and those who are conducting the screenings. Um, but we felt like we were at a point now where this is something we could do on a more regular basis. So, we had initiated a policy change prior to this happening. Tonight, it went before the policy committee for a first for a review and it will come to the full board for a first read. Uh, Mr. Summers, anything additional regarding that policy change? No, I mean I just in terms of what the change is is explicitly authorizing uh
038the daily arrival screening at whatever um schools are are identified by the superintendent uh or the coordinator of emergency management and safe schools. So um and and the rationale for that is the language that's added in the policy is says due to compelling concern for protection of students, staff, and community members and the immediate need to take precautionary measures. Um so that language is consistent with um court cases in Pennsylvania that have talked about what are the circumstances in which searches or screenings are permissible. Um and certainly, you know, we believe that that the cir the current circumstances would allow for daily arrival screening whether it be at North High School or or any other school that's identified by the superintendent or designate. >> Miss McMerry. >> Thanks, Dr. Ber. Just came to my mind
039for uh specific to policies regarding safety security of students and staff. Do the police districts actually ever um be part of any of the review at all, whether it's formal or informal. >> So, uh Mr. Ran or Chief Troxel could weigh in. And Chief, after we're done with this part, I think we're going to talk about communications and our emails and text messages. You could certainly hop off. Um but we do have Brandon, do you have quarterly by annually meetings? >> Yeah. So uh we chiefs get together uh about once a a marking period. So we try to get four meetings in uh throughout the year. Um and so you know we go through a lot of things and one of them are you know if we're looking to make massive sweeping changes to um
040so I'll give an example. Uh when we were rolling out Alice right we talked about uh the impact of Alice. uh whereas you know law enforcement at one point would expect to come in and find everybody locked down. Well, now we're giving people options. So, right, so that they're aware so that when they're doing their training, uh chief's off training officers can make their department aware that you may pull up to a school for a violent critical incident and there will be people running out the door at you versus having the expectation that everybody's going to be locked down. So, um those uh we do have meetings and we discuss a number of things um throughout um the school district from a safety perspective. Uh what new initiatives we're doing, uh training, uh new trends
041we're seeing. Um we also have uh what's called an act 211 meeting that happens once a month. Uh where there's representation from law enforcement and other community groups uh where again we discuss some of the the trends and the things that we're seeing in the school. uh to which degree we can talk about those things and also what are what's happening in the community um that may make its way into school or has made its way into school. So the that open line of commun that schedule line of communication but um it is really the dayto-day conversations through phone, text, email um that that continual communication happens. >> Thank you. >> Okay. Uh Mr. Ron, if you want to kind of talk through the process here. We talked about the policy change itself, but if
042you just want to just give an update on uh the evolved system and maybe we can hear from our student reps just about their experiences. >> Sure. Um so uh as was explained about the policy change that is coming. So I'll talk more about u what does daily screening look like? So, um there are um entrances that uh students use to arrive at school and since Wednesday morning um the students have uh process through getting in the building, walking through the evolved system. Uh I will say that like anything that's kind of new per se, but it's not really new. Um it takes a little bit of time to um work people through a process. And so, um, you know, Mon or Wednesday had a little bit of some longer lines, um, as the system,
043uh, works through. So, let me, actually, let me pause there and talk a little bit about because I want to make sure I'm really clear on what the Evolve weapons detection system is versus your traditional metal detector. Um, and I think sometimes people kind of assume that they're all one and the same, but they're really not. Uh, so your traditional metal detector is looking for things that are made of metal and if it it detects it, it will go off. It doesn't tell you what it is. It doesn't tell you where it is. It just says, "Hey, I detect something metal." Um, and that could certainly prolong uh the process of getting any large quantity of people through a system. Whereas the weapons detection system, it uses AI. So it is looking uh for things
044that are consistent with weapons or what parts of a weapon. It is also the intelligence is able to say okay I recognize this to be a water bottle as long as I can see it or an umbrella as long as I can see it. Uh, and so what the reason why I went this route versus your traditional metal detector is because again it will allow us to move people through quicker than your traditional metal detector. One of the things that we are learning and and teaching our student body through this process is typically students will have their water bottle or their umbrellas in their book bag. They put a book bag on their back. they walk through and the system will identify it and it will say uh I need person monitoring the screen I
045need you to look at this area on this person's bag um and it will show put a a box around where it wants us to check more times than not it is a water bottle or an umbrella and so what we've uh started to do is to make announcements as kids are walking in please remove your water bottles and umbrellas from your bag hold it in your hand they don't need hold their hands up or hold it out, you know, to be uh intentional or obnoxious about it. But if it's simply just in their hand walking through at a normal pace, what we are doing now is the system can see, oh, I can clearly identify this as a water bottle. I don't need to send an alert to say, hey, check this area. So,
046um, what we have done is continually make announcements to students as they're coming in. Please remove your water bottles and your umbrellas and hold them in your hand and they walk through. Um and we are seeing that that is actually speeding up our process. Um now if the system detects something else that it cannot be sure that is not a concern, it will alert us to say hey check this right I'm not 100% sure but check this. So, with any technology, right, you always have to have the human component to verify what the system believes it may or may not see. Um, and so, um, we're going to put more communication out, uh, put a video together. Mr. Gilman and I are going to work on uh a video to work through that um and
047continue to remind folks and and like anything else uh the more we do it right students will remember um and then they will they will come in with their water bottles or their umbrellas in their hands and they'll walk through and we will reduce the the number of activations. Um and so it is uh we are able to move people through rather quickly. Um, for any of you who have not maybe experienced it at North Penn at a uh an event where it was deployed, if you've been to Lincoln Financial Field, Citizens Bank Park, Disney, um other large concert venues, uh I can promise you, you've probably walked through one of these systems in in one of those uh uh venues. So, uh, that's why I chose the when we were going down this route
048last year, chose the, uh, weapons detection AI versus your traditional metal detector because doing the traditional metal detector, folks would have to take things out, put on the table, walk through, grab their stuff. Um, and that would certainly slow the process down. This allows the the intelligence in the system to really do a lot of the work. And also part of that is we get to learn or teach the system what we find acceptable. So when it sends us an alert of an indication that there's a um an area that we need to look uh we can check it and then we can tell the system okay it's a water bottle okay it's an umbrella okay it's a eyeglass case okay it's a laptop or not okay it is a weapon of some type right
049so the the system gets better uh and more accurate every single time we use it every single time we confirm or deny the uh the hit that is is saying to us. So, it's really uh like anything else, it's a two-way communication between the system and the humans um to to make the system better at its job. Uh so, I'll pause there for Mr. Casa. It looks like you have a thought. >> Yeah. Yeah. Mr. Ran, I I just would like you to clarify because we had, you know, some concerns in public comment uh at at the action meeting about I think it was at the middle schools. a comment was made about so many false positives or errors and from what I witnessed and with Dr. Bower actually working a system uh when we
050observed and and for what I'm aware and how it works that's actually not a not a problem but part of the process and and I know you have some data points that also track this. So it it is that that machine learning that's occurring when everyone's tapping the boxes. It's not really false positives. that it's making sure it learns and and that it's protecting us. >> Yeah. Um it is it's so thank you Mr. Kas. I'm glad you asked and I told Mr. Ran I was going to chime in with my experience but I've now done it uh Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Monday. So I've stood at the screen and helped facilitate the process. One morning I had three special guests uh President Mc Merry, Vice President Ramich and Chairperson Casa. They came to watch and
051just experience it. And I can tell you that um in those four mornings, so it it's over an hour each time that I stand there. So I would say four hours worth, I have not seen one single false positive. If if the definition of a false positive is something that was not a weapon, okay, but was it something that I think the system should be concerned about? Yes, every single time. Um it is looking for density, shape, um and obviously the the contents. the metal itself. It is looking for those types of things. So the very first day, just to give a real world example, Wednesday morning, I walked through with this water bottle in the south uh side pot pouch, excuse me, of my backpack and it it hit on my backpack. So I
052went over to the table, Mr. Ran searched my backpack. It was the water bottle. The [snorts] next day, I took it out before I walked through and walked through with it in my hand and it did not because it could tell that it was a water bottle. Um, so our hit rate has gone down because kids are walking through with their items in their hands. Um, but every single time that I have said, "Excuse me, you know, student in the blue sweatshirt, please step aside." Every time we've searched their bags, we found something that we're like, "Oh, this is what it noticed." Um, Mr. Run, I don't know if you have any exceptions to that, but >> yeah. Um I can I can attest to it has not to the true definition of a false
053positive that is not the case. It when it goes off it is going off because it it identifies something that that it wants us to verify. Um you know water bottle umbrella um something right. It there's never been like oh it went off here and you open it like and there's absolutely nothing there. That has never been the case. >> Great. Thank you. Um, could we hear from our student reps just how has your experience been going through Evolve? Um, I recognize it hasn't been perfect yet, but I do feel as though what I've seen it seems to be getting better. We added additional bays in the calf. I think we might need to still add more. Um, but it's getting better every day from my experience. So, go ahead, Grace. Um, I kind of
054knew this topic was going to come up. So, I already took a little bit of survey from just the people around me and like what they kind of thought of it and the general consensus was people actually felt safer with it. Um, I mean, especially after hearing about the incident, people actually felt a lot more safer that it was there and it was, you know, actively protecting students instead. Um, I will say one of the only issues I've ever come across with it is it's this the processing is a little slower than like one person's normal walking pace. Um, I know this because one time I was walking out of the building because I go to Allied Health of like in the middle of the day. So, my friend was walking through and in her
055bag she had like just a piece of aluminum foil from like a lunch or something and that set it off. But when we walked out, it set it off a little bit later so that when when I also walked through, it looked like I was setting it off instead. Um, and then it happened again when we came back. And that's when we realized like, oh, it has a little bit of a delay in the speed which it processes. And yes, I agree that it's great to have a very like fast-paced moving um check in the morning so that it's not an inconvenient to students and not an inconvenient to staff and like we can keep everyone safe. But I will say it is still better to go a little bit slower just in case we're
056not flagging the right people or the wrong people um who actually have something in their bag or might not actually have something in their bag um just for the sake of being thorough. Um, other than that, students tend to tell me it's not that big of an inconvenience is as if they're just walking through school. I know a lot of people like hold their water bottles anyways and even if they don't, it's not that big of an inconvenience to anyone. Um, and overall, people just feel safer and, you know, it's like an like every day at school. It seems like like a normal day at school that you're just walking through like another set of doors. I that is awesome feedback. Um I will share just for the board and anyone watching that when you
057are standing looking at the iPad I agree sometimes when students are coming through a little too quickly it's hard to like who did it ping on but on the screen itself not only does it have a picture of Grace if it's her backpack it highlights her backpack and those images are archived. So, we had a situation this morning where a student came in and we missed him and I was able to show security officer back, hey, this student walked past. I didn't see him, but I see him on my screen. He was like, oh, I know where he is. We went and talked to the student. We searched his things and everything was resolved. Um, so it there is a record in case that does happen um at the initial arrival, but if if I've
058seen it um ping on 300 uh people, we've certainly been able to in that moment get 298 of them and the other two it was we just had to look down the hallway. Oh, there's that student. Um, so it has really been a good experience and a learning experience on my end and I'm glad to hear that the students I it's been my experience. The students are gracious. Like they are like, "No problem. Thank you. Hey, can you step aside?" Yep. It's probably We had I guess one of our classes was doing a food drive and a bunch of kids were coming in with canned goods. So this morning it was just a bunch of canned goods [laughter] that were pinging. So go ahead, Thomas. >> I would just add on what Grace said. Um,
059it's it's obviously it's going to be slower. There's two metal detectors and kids got to line up and just listen. But I feel like as soon as it starts to become a routine, everybody's going to start just, okay, hold my water bottle in my hand, walk through, and if anything does happen, like I've seen students and security guards, like everybody's just so connected, and there's not really ever a big deal. And if there is a big deal, then the machine was doing its job. It's it's meant to to identify stuff that it's not used to. And like Mr. Ran said, it's going to after time and time and time again, if it says, "Okay, this is a water bottle. Okay, this water bottle." It'll start to process that. So, I feel like, and I've heard
060multiple students say that as well, they feel safer. And also, it's not that big of a a hold up in the morning because you try to get to a class on the other side of school and you don't you don't want to feel like you have to stand there and wait for five kids to get through. And it's just it's a still it's a still new process, but um yeah, that's all I got to say. >> Thank you, sir. >> Okay. Anything additional, Mr. R? And >> yeah, the last thing I'll I'll just add is uh there you will still see it at uh at events uh that that we have um that will still take place uh within the within the district. So um we will continue to to roll out that uh and
061uh thank you to Grace and Thomas. Uh we will certainly are fine-tuning uh those the the daily usage uh as we come in. I I I think that feedback is really important and I I know that there's been as well from staff um from the district and that's been important to hear uh in reinforcing uh you know as this policy uh goes into place or this decision but how it how it actually is rolled out in the future and and continues to to develop. Uh, one thing I just want to make clear, understand we're not going to get into these type of details um for for all the right security reasons and planning, but Dr. Bower, Mr. Ran, I want to make sure the community understands it. It's not as if and and that this
062board understands. um even myself the assumption is there are already wheels in motion for the operational expansion and scaling details that can't be provided now but perhaps in some way in the near future so the community understands okay you know it's great that we we were able to have a system already invested in and be able to put this into place but then clearly there needs to be some further investment >> yeah um thank you for that and I did respond so As I said at the start, we do have or did, excuse me, have three reasons why we would deploy Evolve. One of them being random and one being because there's a threat. And on that day, um, we did not randomly deploy it at North Penn High School. And of course, hindsight is
0632020 and I I wish we had, but I will say the fact that we have the training and the infrastructure in place to then the next day have it set up and for the foreseeable future um says a lot about our preparedness um and kind of doing the work to get us to this point. We've already had school dis neighboring school districts reach out and come and watch arrival uh with students. Mr. Casa and President McMerry, you were actually there one day when one of those school districts came to see it like let's see how this works. Um because to my knowledge we're the only school district in the county or neighboring counties um with the system. So I'm grateful that we are here but um from a scalability standpoint Mr. Ran is working on
064plans right now. So >> and and that's not to be answered now. It's for those that have joined us. It's a bit of a ties back to some of the public comment at the action meeting, right? About extracurricular activities, right? Other um opportunities to maybe tighten up that process and then discussions about other facilities as well. There's also just one more opportunity um you know to say this because there's never enough. This is one tool, a very important one. Um most important is prevention. There's not much that can be done when an AR-15 shows up, no matter what system you have in place. And we want to make sure that it's the prevention effort um in having a relational model, the ability for students and everyone else to know that if they see something, say
065something, it'll be responded to and there'll be confidence that it's been responded to. But then we also have additional technologies. We don't want to confuse the evolve system with video analytics and AI with cameras and the importance of realizing before you get to any type of detection system or the envelope of a school, we have to look at what the the trends are as well for uh what data tells us about events outside of school and the parking lot and buffer areas and what that means and and those are areas that we're equally uh invested in. um strategies and and the tactics that continue to to develop as well. So that that's just important for the community to know that there's never just one technology or strategy that fixes everything, but ultimately it does come
066down to the human element in this and and that's what we want to focus on. So >> beautifully said, Mr. Kasa, I was asked uh that question essentially by a student. I talked about the fact that you are in particular always saying how multifaceted uh school sec comprehensive school security is and the best means of school security is having relationships with students and students feeling comfortable that they can report something and they can go to their principal or their counselor or their teacher to say something that's concerning to them or it could be about themselves that they are not feeling okay. But those relationships allow the adults to see that student and say, "You know what? Something's not okay with Thomas right now. Let me talk to him. Let me call his parents." Um, so
067the relationships are far more important than a weapons detection system or a security camera. Um, and so all of those things layered together and programmings like MTSS, like child study, like PBIS, like behavioral threat assessments, uh, data analysis, all these things layered together create comprehensive school safety. It is not one tool or one, you know, uh, easy button, if you will. So, thank you for that. I do want to, Mr. Casa, recognize Chief Traxxel. Um, as I said at the start here, Chief, you have plenty of your own meetings that you need to attend and your willingness to attend our meeting and answer questions from our group. Um, I just really appreciate your partnership uh, with the school district. you are absolutely um the epitome of what we would hope for in a community school
068policing partner. Uh so thank you. Thanks for being here. Uh we know you always pick up when we call. So we appreciate you. >> Thank you. I appreciate that. I was on at 5:30. I think I had the wrong link. It said the host is on another meeting and figured some things out. So I apologize for being a little late. >> Um >> but uh it's my pleasure. It's uh you know these relationships are important. It's just like Dr. Bower said like relationships are where everything starts. Um you can have everything else in the world if you don't have relationships. You're always behind the eightball and I I do think we have a good working relationship with the school district and and we work hard at having that relationship and um it's been developed over
069many years and and hopefully it just continues to get to get better. >> Thank you, Chief. Thank you, Chief. Thank you and and your team. >> Our pleasure. Okay, Mr. uh Ran, I guess you President Mc Merry before >> I'm I'm sorry. I don't even know if this is the proper um question for this in the where the agenda is. So, if it's for later, fine. But interested to know with the evolve system, are there any metrics that would be considered important for communication um at safe schools going forward? We have our discipline metrics. I don't know what it would look like, Mr. Ran. False positives. I I'm not sure. Um, but it's certainly something I would be interested in hearing going forward. >> So, uh, the short answer is yes. Um, there there is
070data um that is captured on a daily uh basis, seven weekly basis and monthly basis. Um so we are able to u see how many count the number of people that's gone through uh any one single unit or all of the units and then what is the hit rate uh of those units. So to the point um I don't remember it might have been Dr. Bower or Dr. Nicholson I can't remember Dr. I was talking to one of them um and we were talking about you know the whole umbrella water bottle thing and what was the hit rate on Wednesday versus what was the hit rate on Friday right and I think we started at like I don't um I want to say it was somewhere around 15% something like that and I think by
071Friday we got down to nine right because again we started to communicate taking the water bottle out holding it in your hand the umbra those kind of things um so we do have the ability to collect that data And again, I'm not, you know, I I want it to be smart. I want it to be informed. I want it to um communicate to the community, to the staff, to the students. Um but I don't know what that looks like, but I would defer to you to bring it, if you would, at the appropriate time, bring it back to this committee for discussion on what metrics should be included and why. >> Sure. I think I can tie that uh we can tie that into uh the discipline or maybe it's the month before the discipline
072because I know sometimes the discipline data report um can can be a lot um and and that so I think putting those two together might be a bit much for the the time slot we have but certainly we can do that. >> Great. Thank you Mr. Ron. Uh and our final item this evening is uh regarding communications and just I heard from a number of people who reached out saying they didn't receive the communications and um we looked into it and I would say every time there was a reason whether it was in spam or promotions whether they had unsubscribed um and the the zar of all communications here in the school district um our coordinator of communications media is Mr. Mr. Bob Gilmer. Certainly not a stranger to anyone. Uh but Bob, >> first
073of all, welcome back. >> And second of all, can you just kind of walk people through um if you need to check, what do you check? How do you make sure? Those types of things. >> Sure. And and just quickly going through it here. Um I had a a question I had asked a couple times and I saw it in social media about uh I need to go sign up or how do I sign up for notifications as a parent in the North Penn school district? and you're signed up as soon as you register your child with your contact information and we take that immediately. And all of our information that we have that we use in school messenger for emails and and phone calls and text messaging all comes from Infinite Campus that's updated
074nightly. So as long as it's up to date in Infinite Campus every night it gets updated and it'll be updated. If you change something tomorrow morning, it would be updated by the next day. Uh so you don't have to do anything to receive notifications. Um but the big thing is uh for people to keep in mind only guardians receive notifications in our system. So it's a guardian of the child. Uh so you just can't add 15 email addresses. It's going to be for each guardian. And then Dr. Bower is absolutely correct. It is typically you have unsubscribed. And I think what people tend to not realize is if you get lots of newsletters and you you get tired of it by law because we have a mass notification system we have to allow you to
075unsubscribe from it. And what that does is when you unsubscribe, it unsubscribes your email address from school messenger. It doesn't unsubscribe just that type of notification. It unsubscribes it from the school messenger system. So it is I would say 95% of the time I'm not getting messages. I go look in there like well you unsubscribed in September and it's easy to resubscribe and the easiest way to do that is to contact Bob Gilmer. Just email me at [email protected]. Uh I'll share this page real quick. We have a school whole school messenger FAQ up here. Um, if you go to the website under four families, there is a school messenger FAQ. My email address is in there and that's the fastest way to ask a question. I can look it up immediately and usually fix the
076problem within a minute or so of that that issue. Uh, the other thing that I wanted to just share with folks as as far as text messaging goes, you do have to opt into text messaging. And when your number is first put into school messenger, when you first register, you would have received a text message that said, "Hey, do you want to continue to receive notifications from North Penn School District?" We're allowed to send one, "Hey, do you want to join text message when you first uh your information is entered into the system?" And you have to say yes. If you ignored that when you got that text message when you were first registered down here on the school messenger site, it shows where you can u subscribe your your cell phone number for text
077messaging, but it has to be a cell number you have on file with us. So, you can't subscribe some random other phone number. It has to be the cell phone number you have on file with us. So, they're the big things as far as what people usually see. I know in Gmail, it happens to me frequently, too. Check your promote promotions tab. Check your social tab. check your junk and your spam. Um, we can look at that pretty quickly to see if you have received the message. Um, and it's very rare that there's no reason why you didn't receive a message and we can usually figure that out. Uh, I think that's that's basically it. I don't know Dr. Bower if you wanted me to show the go.school messenger.com on how to manage your notifications,
078but I know we're tight for time coming up to 7 o'clock. >> Yeah. No, I think the the primary takeaway is you are automatically subscribed when you register, but if it's going to spam, if it's going to promotion, whatever, contact Bob Gilmer. >> Contact me. I'll take care of it. >> Gilmer kpen.org. >> And you all know it's two L's, right? Two L's. >> Yes. G. >> And and and I also believe part of this is what was discussed last week, Erin? Um, a variable of this is that evolution of the district's messaging and learning to have other protocols like when there are certain visiting groups from other schools, right, added to the to those lists and then the ability to take them off um or that they time out. And then there's also I'm
079sure what we'll see in the future um that won't be forgotten is the ability when an precedent is well set on building level and the type of communications that go out. Dr. Bower did a great job at action meeting of explaining what the district will look into in terms of either certain thresholds or decisions that need to be made when just we need to let maybe our local news outlets or other types of messages that can go a little bit further and wider than just the immediate guardian list. So expect to see those type of protocols and practices discussed and even implemented in the future. Correct me if I'm wrong with any of that description, Dr. B. No, that was beautifully said. Thank you, >> Miss Rnik. >> Uh, thank you, Mr. Casa. And, uh,
080thanks to everybody who has presented this evening. It's been that, you know, it's good to, even though I'm close to it, it's it's good to keep hearing and internalizing certain facts. So for instance as an engineer who works in that space every day every time I'm thinking about a new process or a new machine etc. you know, you think about where can I pilot where can I pilot this before I, you know, invest all this money on it or has somebody else used it that I can learn from which is what you're describing that, you know, other school districts are coming to learn from us and it's not easy to be the first one. Um, you know, we could have said when we first had the discussion about Evolve about a year ago, we could
081have said, "Let's invest, you know, 300,000 in this." But we also knew then that it was important to make sure we understood the system, understood what it took to run the system and to train people. So, it's been a great learning, but it wasn't until you mentioned the fact that other school districts were coming to visit us and to and also learn from us did it really click to me that the importance of piloting. It's never easy to be first in and the first one using a a system, but it it is so wise to invest wisely a small amount first as as we make a decision on whether or not this is the path we want to go cuz I'm reflecting on questions we got on why do we only have one or why
082does it only cover one school or or one event and it you know realistically if we overinvest and it didn't work, it wouldn't have been we would be hearing the opposite comments as well. So, um what we've learned from I'm sure will ex significantly expedite other school districts learning and uh I'm sure they will all be grateful for what North Penn has done. So, thank you to Mr. Casa, Mr. own and the administration for taking this this leap of faith a year ago. >> Thank you. >> Yeah, thank thank you for that that framing. It's it's really helpful having thought about it that way from that perspective and it's important to recognize that um you know K12 schools across America are some of the safest places for students to be. Um, North Penn is no
083exception. U, but it also doesn't mean that we we say we're done our journey. Um, it it's it's always going to be a path that we remain on um to have the safest, most vibrant, most welcoming and secure schools. And that's part of this balance. And uh as community uh expectations and understandings change and opportunities, hopefully we'll continue to to iterate and innovate. Um but ultimately always do what's uh best for students. And uh that usually ends up being what's best for taxpayers too, so we're not wasting money. Uh with that, uh any final comments or questions before we move on? Seeing none, uh next item is for other business. Any other business related to safe schools or that which may come before? Okay. will um I would like to at least take the opportunity
084before we get into public comment. Uh as part of other business to reinforce what was discussed before last action meetings public comment and that's to please um let's be careful of speculation when it comes down to our students. The facts that are shared aren't always what people say are the facts. And I I I personally find it a bit disappointing with some of the information that was shared that um I haven't even heard verified yet from the investigations and the information that we've had. So um not speaking about this one particular incident. It's important to let people um speak and comment freely as they should, but we should also be very aware um that those words can have implications, especially on those who are students. Even if they are going through crisis and uh have
085some accountability with the justice department, it's probably important not to inject misinformation or disinformation into our public discourse. that helps no one, especially our students. With that, we'll move on to public content. Mr. Gilmer, >> I do have I do have one hand raised currently. So, if you could read the statement, uh, we'll get going. >> Wonderful. Individuals attending this meeting and intending to speak to the committee should be aware that they are being recorded. In order to meet the requirements of Pennsylvania Sunshine Law, it is necessary to record the names of all citizens who speak to the committee during the meeting. To assure compliance with this requirement is essential that those planning to address the committee raise their hand electronically and state their name and municipality. As a reminder, the public comment portion of
086the meeting is designed for residents and taxpayers of the district to provide comments and feedback on matters being discussed at tonight's meeting or matters that may come before the safe schools committee. Is not designed for debate or discussion with members of the committee. When appropriate, committee members may choose to respond to public comments that have been made or request that a member of the administration follow up with the speakers after the meeting. Members of the audience are asked to limit their questions and comments to three minutes. This is in reference to board policy number 9003, which was revised in February 2022. And I will take this one moment uh for those who may be joining for facilities and operations. That meeting will begin immediately after uh the safe schools committee meeting is adjourned. Thank you.
087>> Okay. Up first is Christine Coin. Also uh for everybody else that's in the group here tonight that's in the Zoom meeting, if you do intend to make comment, go ahead and raise your hand. In the bottom of the interface, there's a raise hand icon. Click on that. So up first is Christine Coin. Christine, I have enabled your microphone. So when you're ready to begin, please state your name and municipality for the record and begin your comments, please. >> Thank you. I'm Christine Coin. um Hatfield. Um so I have three I guess suggestions and comments. Um the first is and I think you were referenced that there's going to be upcoming changes with communication protocols when something a safety issue of this magnitude happens in any of the school buildings. My request is to please
088consider that something like this, a weapon that's found, um, consider sending it to the entire district. There's parents that have children in multiple levels in middle, elementary, or high, and the screenshots and the community discussion happen swiftly after that email is sent out. And it it makes parents that do not receive that feel like they're being excluded from conversation or that things are being hidden when that's not your intention. So just a consideration of some kind of threshold or bar or does this go to the whole district or not? Because it's going to get there somehow. It's just a matter of if it's going to be coming from the source or is it going to be coming from um from families just sharing the the information and speculation. Um my second uh request I guess
089is to somehow from what I understand from teachers that I've spoken to that teachers were getting questions from students who parents received the email but they weren't able to check their email um that something happened in the school um because they were actively teaching class. So if there is a way to remind uh or urge staff to check their emails if need be so they are not put in that situation and they can be better informed and be better to support the children and reassure them. Um I think that would be helpful. Uh also I appreciated hearing that other districts came to visit to watch the evolve system and how it was run. Um, and I if I heard correctly that that is not the evolved system is not in any neighboring districts, but do
090any neighboring districts have any daily safety protocols that monitor weapons outside of Evolve um at different points of entry in the schools, not just for high school, but for middle and elementary. Thank you. >> All righty. >> Thank you. >> Yep. Up next is Jason Laneir. Jason, I have enabled your microphone. So, when you're ready to begin, please state your name and municipality for the record and begin your comments, please. >> Jason Laneir, Lansdale, excuse me. Um, I I was actually more interested in the the efficacy of the evolved system. I know you guys mentioned about false positive or whatnot is you know it's a learning system so it takes a couple of times to go through but it doesn't take much to research the number of lawsuits that have been brought up against evolve
091technologies and weapon detection systems. They've been put in a number of stadiums as you mentioned and there's been lawsuits and then in fact the FTC is well maybe they just settled or they are currently suing Evolve for their language and uh in the initial sentiment they settlement I should say they talked about uh the overstating of what it is capable of doing and there was a lot of schools that not in this area apparently but other areas that have uh um been requested re uh required uh or were granted refunds, but if you bought it too early or you have too large of a system, you weren't. So, before we get into this and start dumping a lot of money into it, maybe we should really check on the efficacy and how well it does
092because yeah, not only false positives, but what how many things did it miss? It was found to have missed I think this was up in Udica, New York. it missed a like a 17inch knife or something and a kid ended up getting killed. So, let's make sure we're we're we're buying into the correct system. And and [clears throat] just to be clear, and I think this is for Cassid to to explain whether or not his his role at at uh Zero Now and their alliance with um their alliance program with with uh Evolve is is is pushing us in this direction rather than what is truly the most uh efficacious way of of doing weapons detection system. I know it's not a metal detector. I know it's supposed to be doing more, but if it's
093if it's just making you feel good like a talisman and it's not actually doing what it's supposed to be doing, then why are we doing it? So, those two things should be answered before you guys proceed. Uh, and and maybe do a little more research on on on how well the uh the systems working uh throughout the United States. I'll leave it there. Thank you. >> Thank you. So, I do not see any other hands raised. So, that will conclude public comment. Well, I I would like to give an opportunity. I I think with Miss Coin's questions, um some of those probably need direct followup with uh from Mr. Ran or Dr. Bower, though. Please uh take the opportunity if there's some um quick answers uh now. that that would be great and then we
094can address uh briefly Mr. Laneir's questions too since the two of them sat through uh this meeting and had their questions. I I'd like to make sure to get some responses. >> Yeah, certainly. Uh happy to Mr. Kasa and thank you Miss Coin for your comments. Uh she referenced um considering communications to the full district and she seemed to allude to the fact that we mentioned that the other night as well. definitely something uh to discuss. The balance of um overcommunicating and causing more concern, chaos, hysteria is a decision that needs to be weighed. I do think something could have been sent sooner to the rest of the district. Um Mr. Casa, you said the other night that there's new legislation out there. I believe it's um 247. I could be wrong on the number.
095Um >> 274, but Senate bill either way. Yeah, Senate Bill 247-274 um that would require school districts uh to communicate within 24 hours um with the entire district unless it's the threat has been neutralized or mitigated and then um that changes things a bit, but we are certainly well within that time frame. Um but I do think we could have done that sooner uh for certain and I do understand the concern it caused for those who didn't get that. So that will be a part of the conversation moving forward for sure. Um and she referenced the fact that families are are sharing this information and even though it's not our intent, people feel left out. Understood. Um also the comment about teachers not checking their email, excuse me, they're actively teaching and then parents are
096texting their kids. Um of course we would prefer we're not texting during class and during school, but uh Mr. Hassler has kind of owned and I support him in that. Yeah. No, we could have gotten on the PA system and said staff, teachers and staff, please check your email for an important message from me, Mr. Hassler. Um, so that was that was a miss on that end. And we >> Dr. Ber and [clears throat] don't mean to cut you off for that, but there's also the nuance of when a real emergency happens. We've gone through the details as to why there was not a lockdown and the situation was quickly mitigated it this time and what it would have meant maybe with a different type of decision. But if a true emergency exists that that
097has not been immediately mitigated or neutralized there is the voiceover IP multiple modes of communication so that people are able to to understand uh their attention is needed. >> Yes. So there's our mass notification system alert us that shows up on every screen whether there are monitors in the hallway devices teachers laptops there's a voiceover IP PA system. So you are correct Mr. Casa. Um next there was a question about or a suggestion just like consulting with other school districts on things they're doing that we're not and Mr. is part of a job like in the county um where they share these ideas and he's actually well recognized across the country in those spaces um as well. When it comes to Mr. Lenir's questions about efficacy um I agree I do believe we've done our
098homework. We can also uh there are test kits uh which we have been utilizing to make sure the device is working properly and when we had police officers there that day we actually tested it and had them walk through. I think you were there for the one, Mr. Grass. He walked through with his firearm and making sure you know that it detected it. It sure did. Um, so certainly um I can agree with his comments. There is not, as we said, there is not one tool. There is not there is nothing that will solve all the world's problems. Um, there is no easy button, but layering the approach here and doing it responsibly. And >> and to that end, you know, Mr. Laneir, uh, great homework on the FTC piece. I actually read that settlement
099the day that it came out and um I'm very proud of my role um three decades in school safety and security and and community public safety. So yeah, I have a few connections to just about anybody. Alertis, I was speaking at University of Cincinnati on emergency crisis communications um as thought leadership. Nothing I'm paid for by Alertis, but they were one of the sponsors. I think uh you could look up zero now and maybe Evolve gave $5,000. I'd like to think that if I'm going to sell out, it'll be for a lot more, but I never will. Ultimately, um it's because I I'm in that position for the last eight years. I really try to make sure that um I'm able to help augment and reinforce this committee's goal to make sure that we we
100do follow just like you. uh I think is a fair demand from the community that we have the right efficacy in any of these investments and that FPC filing in particular dealt with uh years ago in which and this shouldn't just help with fact sharing um and perhaps you read this Mr. er, but it was about Evolve early on saying it was equal to or better than metal detectors. And that's why the FTC got into that because it's about truth and advertising. And so, um, that that was a serious, um, misstep that, uh, they were made to correct and make the right type of response. I'm not aware of of that high of a rate of people returning their systems that that was based on potentially false advertising and that need to exchange the system.
101Um any type of weapons detection system um and those that even compete with u someone like uh evolve you really have to look at the amount of repetitions not just the customers but what all that data has and you always will have failures. actually why I mentioned that oftent times it's some human failure and there's proof just about every week in systems across the country where there is human failure and we have to make sure we're always looking at the process and how it's utilized in order to reduce that as much as possible. So that's that's really good takeaway. Um but this is also why we've gotten to a certain point of iterating getting uh understand the evolved system having our due diligence and that's why this uh further investment was made. So thank you
102for bringing that up Mr. Lener you always help uh on the ramp parts looking for that information. Uh any other questions or comments from the committee? >> No none from me. Thank you. >> No thank you. I loved our presentation tonight. Thank you to Mr. Ran, Chief Troxel, and Dr. Bower. >> Thank you from our student reps. Any last questions or comments from you before we leave? >> Well, thank you very much um everyone for your time and attention to these important matters. Uh we will have another safe schools committee meeting uh November I want to make sure I get it right because of Thanksgiving at uh November 24th at [snorts] 5:45 in a virtual format. Uh thank you everyone. We will be seeing some of you at the facilities and operations program probably around
1037:15. Check and uh click that new link and this meeting is adjourned. Thank you.