A potentially dangerous situation was safely avoided on Tuesday, October 21st, 2025, after a student was found carrying a 9mm handgun inside North Penn High School.

District administration and school security were notified by police that a student may have brought a weapon onto campus. The information came from a separate criminal investigation regarding a non-school related incident. The student was immediately located and found to be in possession of the weapon. 

The student was placed into custody by the police by the Towamencin Township Police Department. The following charges were approved for the juvenile:

Possession of a Firearm with Manufacturer Number Altered (2nd Degree Felony)

Firearms not to be Carried Without a License (3rd Degree Felony)

Possession of a Weapon on School Property (1st Degree Misdemeanor)

Possession of Firearm by a Minor (1st Degree Misdemeanor)

The district emphasized that the student did not express intent to hurt someone. The timing of the information delivered to the district created a challenge, being at the same time as classes were rotating; more than 3,000 students were in the hallways at the time. Superintendent Dr. Bauer explained during the NPSD School Board Action Meeting on 10/23, that had students been in class at the time, a “hold” procedure would have been put into place.

Bauer praised the preparedness and bravery of the North Penn staff as well as the time from when the initial phone call ended to the student being safely in the NPHS security office: 2 minutes.

“Mr. Hassler, Mr. Rhone, and Bernie [Jones] were superheroes. None of them had a weapon on them, lethal or nonlethal. None of them had a tool to deal with this if this turned into a worst case scenario,” Bauer said. “But they had the fortitude and the bravery to step in and do what was right and what was best…I’m proud of the way that everyone handled it. I’m not proud of the event. All we can do is learn from it and do better.”

In the wake of the incident, there has been large community outreach regarding the use of the recently added Evolv Weapons detections system. In the past, the system was used on a random or need based account. Every day following the event, the system has been set up in the main entrance and bus loop entrance. Additionally, the NPHS gym lobby door will remain locked.

“Evolv is installed permanently here at North Penn High School. Prior to any of this, we budgeted for more Evolv systems to use throughout the school district. We are also pursuing, it is not yet approved, school police,” Bauer said. “When people are coming to the building, the intent is to have everything locked except for those entrances [main and bus loop]. That’s the way it should be at all of our schools. Now, they don’t all have the Evolv system, but every door should be locked except the main entrance.”

As beneficiary as the Evolv systems can be, there is a cost to the further expansion and implementation of them.

“North Penn High School has something like 50 exterior doors. Just to give a price perspective, we currently have 4 Evolv bays. That was $250,000. So, 8 would be half a million,” Bauer explained. “I think it’s reasonable to say each bay requires at least three adults. You have someone telling the kids to go through and controlling traffic…someone watching the monitor and…someone checking bags and people. So in addition to the hardware and software costs, you have personnel costs too.”

If there are 50 exterior doors at NPHS, that would be about $2,875,000 spent to cover all entrances with Evolv systems. They’re not the only option in terms of keeping the school safe though, as the superintendent went over the current alternatives to school safety.

“Our camera software has artificial intelligence, so it can sense that our door is propped, it can also sense a weapon. If somebody’s walking in a parking lot with a shotgun, it will pick it up. I’ll get a text message [and] the police will be notified. There’s a lot of other measures that have been put in place over the matter,” Bauer said.

In the school board action meeting, community members shared concerns about student history and their discipline in previous districts.  Dr. Bauer shared that there are vetting processes from one district to the next and that he is comfortable with how that process took place in this situation.

Bauer emphasized the role the students play in everyday safety, as well as the importance of the relationships between the staff and students.

“Any time you have a situation where people are concerned about school security, there is heightened awareness as well. Kids are more aware, we’re getting more Safe2Say tips, so things are magnified, which is a good thing. It increases awareness and hopefully, increased awareness results in increased reporting and we can work together to ‘see something, say something,’” Bauer said. “Metal detectors and security guards and police and hardware all are measures to keep kids safe, but the most important things are relationships with kids. When people say, ‘if you see something, say something,’ if you know the children, you’re more likely to hear something, and if the kids trust the adults, they’ll go to them when they see something. That is paramount in keeping kids safe.”

Times have changed, and with them have come changes in security. For Bauer, keeping the school as safe as possible while still maintaining a comfortable learning environment is uber important.

“When we originally purchased [Evolv] and wrote Policy 226, people were concerned, like ‘we don’t want metal detectors [Evolv] all day, every day.’ It’s interesting how events change opinions. We are not going to have barbed wires and guard dogs and things like that outside the school. At the same time, we can’t have it be a free-flowing open campus like it was in the 60s where people just come and go. Things are different in 2025,” Bauer said. “You just have to use some level of common sense, be responsible, and be responsive to kids and staff. Kids will speak up when they don’t feel safe.You can’t spend all of your money on hardware and software and fortifying your building. You’ve got to invest in programs and people too.”

The use of Evolv outside of school hours for smaller events was not something Bauer intended on pursuing currently.

“Smaller events, it is a challenge. We have 400 people who work in this building [NPHS]. But once we hit three o’clock, the 400 staff is now down to 50, 60 people. So we cannot run a system across all doors,” Bauer said. “It’s really about educating people, recognizing concerns, using other means that don’t necessarily require people, like surveillance cameras reporting systems. I don’t know that it will be [used] every day, 24 hours, but certainly when we have those large events, that gets the attention.”

Dr. Bauer reiterated the words of school board member Kunbi Rudnick and the continued  mental effects of school violence in the lives of this generation of students.

“Mrs. Kunbi Rudnick said, I have a sophomore and I have a senior. And I’ve talked a lot to them, I’ve talked to their friends and their teammates, and it sounds like kids are okay. They’re doing okay. And she mentioned the fact that it’s sad that kids today in 2025 brush something like this off so easily. It’s almost like society is callous to such events,” Bauer paraphrased. 

“I can tell you that from the temperature check that I’ve taken with kids and families, while everyone is sad and hurt by what happened, people are doing okay, all things considered,” he added.

Below is the word for word quote from Mrs. Rudnick:

“I’ve had the opportunity to speak to many, many high school kids. I’ve called friends to find out how their kids are doing. And not to make it light, they were doing okay…And I actually wondered if that was a good thing because it means that society is accepting of this. All of us are. It’s not a good thing.”

In all his time in the school work force, this was the first occasion Bauer had been faced with the problem of a firearm.

“I have dealt with nearly everything you can deal with at a school over the last 21 years. I’ve worked in four school districts, and I’ve served in a variety of roles, but I have probably seen and dealt with every type of drug, every type of threat. I’ve dealt with the death of students, death of staff members, all types of behaviors that you can imagine. A fire, bomb threats, all types of things. I’ve never had a firearm in school that I’ve dealt with,” Bauer said. 

“Prior to this event, had you asked me if one were to come in, how would you hope that would be handled? My response to that question would be, I would hope someone would have the courage to report it. I would hope that our team was well prepared to handle it. I would hope that they had relationships with the students involved so that there’s a level of trust that they will comply and know that they’re there to help them. I would hope that our emergency responders would be timely in their response to help us and that the issue would be dealt with in a way in which no one got hurt. All those things happened,” he continued.

Emotions can be high after such an event, and people may not know who to turn to to share their feelings. Bauer wanted to deliver this message specifically to the parents of the North Penn community:

“I would just want to validate [parents] feelings. I, too, am a parent. My kids are in middle school and in high school, and this type of event is everyone’s worst nightmare. Whether you have a kindergartner, are a teacher, a principal, a custodian, or a high school student. It’s everyone’s greatest fear. So whatever they’re feeling, I absolutely just want to validate and say that I agree, I’m with you. We’re going to do everything we can to limit the chances that anything like this could happen again. The people who work across the district got into education because they care about kids. It is never to make millions or to be famous. It’s really because they want to help kids and they want to help them achieve their goals beyond our school district. There are really great people working really hard every day to make sure everyone is safe.”

“Sometimes people make bad choices. I also think anytime a student does something potentially dangerous for other people, it’s important for us to remember that it’s a child, and children make mistakes and we don’t all know what those children have been through and what their life experiences have been. The way that we prevent something like this from ever happening again extends beyond the walls of this building and beyond the property of this campus. It’s about the community supporting kids and families who need help. No one wakes up in the morning and thinks, I want to do something to hurt others. I want to be a bad human being. I see behaviors as a symptom of something else. When a student misbehaves or does something wrong, there’s a reason for it. I just hope that we can keep that perspective in trying to help all 13,000 kids all the time. It’s impossible, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try.”

To find out more information about North Penn and it’s work to continue to protect the schools and students in all manners, tune into the NPSD School Board – Safe Schools Virtual Committee at 5:45 tonight, 10/27, where Chief Timothy Troxel of Towamencin Police is scheduled to attend.