PA Senate Committee Looks At Rules On Armed Resource Officers In Schools

By Kim Jarrett | Watchdog.org

In the same week that two armed students killed one student and injured several others in Highlands Ranch, Colorado, the Pennsylvania Senate Education Committee discussed placing armed school resource officers in the schools.

Lawmakers passed Act 44 of 2018 which established the school safety and security committee and requires schools to appoint school safety and security coordinators. A $60 million grant program was created to fund the program.

The act established standards for school resource officers, police officers, and security guards, but some school districts apparently were confused about rules regarding armed officers.

No schools in Lower Bucks County employ their owned armed police force, but some do have unarmed security and school police and work with officers from municipal police departments.

Senate Bill 621 by Sen. Mike Regan, R-York, seeks to clarify Act 44. In testimony before the committee, Regan said he asked security experts for their one recommendation for keeping students safe.

“Like clockwork, all have responded with, ‘Put an armed, vetted, trained school security officer on the ground,’” Regan told the committee.

The bill does not require school districts to hire armed officers but gives them the option to if the districts choose.

Another provision of the bill clarifies the act’s language to include sheriff’s deputies and school resource officers.

The bill passed the committee unanimously and now goes to the full Senate for approval.

In other action, the committee passed a bill that would allow a private licensed school to expand outside of its location. The Private Licensed School Act passed in 1986 prohibits the schools from having branches outside of the county where they’re based and requires them to establish a different institution in the other county.

Senate Bill 456 would allow the schools to establish branches in contiguous counties or in counties that are within 60 miles.

Sen. Camera Bartolotta, R-Monongahela, co-sponsored the bill with Sen. James Brewster, D-Allegheny, after a Pittsburgh aeronautical school was denied an application to establish a branch in another county.

“I’m a private pilot and I understand the benefits of teaching aviation,” Bartolotta said. “We are incredibly behind in new pilots being trained every year. We are losing 3,000 a year in the country.”

The bill passed the committee unanimously and is now in the Senate Appropriations Committee.