BUTLER TWP — The Butler School Board on Monday voted to spend $13,201 on pistols and ammunition for school police officers and approved the guidelines for their use.

The board agreed to buy 25 Glock pistols, 25 holsters and ammunition from the Officer Store in Chalk Hill, Pa.

“It’s a fairly standard-issue weapon for officers,” said Mike Strutt, superintendent. “There’s a standard clip that fits into a Glock.”

The school police include one officer at each elementary school, two officers at the junior high school and three officers each at the intermediate and senior high schools. The district also employs part-time and substitute officers, Strutt said.

About $800,000 has been budgeted overall for school and event security in the proposed 2013-14 budget, Strutt said.

Under the new guidelines, officers are permitted to use “deadly force” to protect lives.

“An officer may use deadly force to protect himself or others from what he reasonably believes to be an immediate threat of death or serious bodily injury,” the guidelines say.

Officers are not required to wait until they or another person is injured to fire their weapon.

Strutt said, “If we’re going to put a person in a building with a weapon, the sole purpose is to stop a person who is going to hurt children, Our idea is that the gun will never be used. If it ever is used, it’s a bad situation.”

School police may use deadly force against juveniles as well as adults.

The guidelines also instruct officers not to shoot to kill, but rather to shoot to stop and incapacitate an assailant.

Officers are not to engage in physical confrontations, but should call municipal police to handle “unruly persons,” Strutt said.

Also, police are not permitted to fire warning shots or to engage in vehicular chases.

Under the guidelines, officers cannot search people who enter the schools, but can make “minimal searches” of their belongings. Persons are required to pass through metal detectors at each building entrance.

The guidelines on the use of force are in addition to the district’s policies on school police officers and on the use of force and non-lethal weapons by school police, which are posted on the district’s website. Under those policies, a police officer may use pepper mace spray, a baton or handcuffs to subdue a potentially violent person.

In March, the board agreed to buy a $5 million per incident liability policy written by Swett & Crawford, of Woodland Hills, Calif., for $10,000 annually. The insurer would provide an attorney for a school police officer involved in a shooting.

For a copy of the School Police Procedural Guidelines on the use of force, file a Right to Know request with the school district.