Charleroi Regional Police Resource Officer
Ryan Brand
Security Staff:
Ramont Small - High School
Erik Bess - Middle School
Jim Franks - Elementary Center
Parental and Employee Notification of Weapon Incidents
Section 1303.2-A defines a school entity as an area career and technical school, charter school, cyber charter school, regional charter school, school district, or intermediate unit. A school entity, as well as a nonpublic school or a private academic school, is required to notify parents, guardians, and school employees of incidents involving the possession of a weapon on any school property. Under Section 1303.2-A, school property is considered any of the following:
- Public school grounds.
- A location where a school-sponsored activity is conducted.
- A conveyance providing transportation to a school entity, nonpublic school, private school or school-sponsored activity.
A notification must be sent if the incident constitutes a violation of one of the following:
- Section 1317.2 of the School Code (Possession of Weapons Prohibited)
- Section 912 of the Crimes Code (Possession of Weapon on School Property)
- Locally established policies of the school entity, nonpublic school, or private school’s governing body relating to weapons.
A “weapon” shall include but not be limited to any knife, cutting instrument, cutting tool, nun-chuck stick, firearm, shotgun, rifle, and any other tool, instrument or implement capable of inflicting serious bodily injury.
Unless the circumstances of the incident necessitate otherwise, the required notification must be made within 24 hours of the incident occurring and must be made using a method of communication likely to reach parents, guardians, and school employees. Notification must be sent even in cases where a threat assessment determines there is no threat.
. (Source: PA.GOV)
School Safety - How do we keep our schools safe?
The Charleroi Area School District is committed in keeping it's student, staff and visitors safe. We have
Including but not limited to:
- InformaCast PA System to alert each building of lock downs and weather hazards.
- Raptor Visitor Management System to know who is in our buildings at all times
- Advanced State-of-the-Art Security System
- Over 200 hundred cameras campus wide
- License Plate Reader camera
- Access Control Badge System
- Video/Audio Recording on every Bus/Van
The Charleroi Area School District holds a Threat Assessment Meeting with it's staff members once a month.
In June of 2019, legislation was enacted to assist schools in creating safer environments. One of the acts, Article XIII-E, Threat Assessment was added to the Pennsylvania School Code.
The law states that each school entity (school district, intermediate unit, area career and technical school, charter school, regional charter school, or cyber charter school) shall establish at least one threat assessment team. In accordance with the legislation, the School Safety and Security Committee (SSSC), Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency (PCCD), and key stakeholders from across Pennsylvania developed model procedures and guidance materials to help local schools establish and operate threat assessment teams.
The Charleroi Area School District complies with all Threat Assessment Team requirements under Act 55 of 2022. All school buildings within the Charleroi Area School District have threat assessment teams composed of, but not limited to, the following District employees: principal, school counselors, school psychologist, school police officer, and additional members, as needed. Building level teams report to the District level team, which includes District Central Office administrators and student support services staff. All team members have received training on the process of identifying, reporting, assessing, responding to and intervening with threats by utilizing the threat assessment process and protocols. The School Safety and Security Coordinator has been identified as Officer Ryan Brand. Officer Brand of the Charleroi Police Department oversees the training, development, and implementation of Threat Assessment and School Safety programming. Annually, staff is provided with information on how to report a threat, report student at-risk behavior, and how to conduct safety and security drills. Student information reviewed and maintained by the Threat Assessment Teams is confidential.
Charleroi Area School District Safety Assessment on Pittsburgh's KDKA
