Residents packed a Central Bucks school board meeting Thursday that saw the parents of students with autism speaking out after the superintendent was put on leave amid outrage over abuse at Jamison Elementary.
Board President Susan Gibson announced Superintendent Steve Yanni’s leave at the beginning of the meeting, to applause from attendees. Multiple speakers called for the resignations or firings of the superintendent and other employees.
Board members and residents called the findings of abuse in the report, and the subsequent handling of the allegations horrific, disgusting and heartbreaking.
The school board did not specify how long Yanni’s leave will be, but Gibson indicated that it would last at least until the conclusion of the separate independent investigation the board approved earlier this year, which is still pending.
A report released Wednesday by Disability Rights Pennsylvania, a nonprofit with federal access authority to investigate on behalf of people with disabilities, found that nonverbal autistic children were abused, neglected and discriminated against in a Jamison special education classroom. Investigators also found that administrators, including the superintendent, had misled police and parents about the child abuse allegations.
Dad of child reportedly abused in Jamison classroom comes forward
Several parents of children with autism spoke at the board meeting, including the father of a student in the classroom who came forward for the first time. At least four other parents of children from the Jamison classroom have spoken publicly about the allegations so far.
Michael Henry said his son was hit on a regular basis by another student in the classroom where a teacher and an aide reportedly abused and neglected students.
Henry said in seeking help for his son he was repeatedly lied to and misled.
The nonprofit found that multiple staffers had told district administrators that the teacher was failing to intervene when students were hit and was not sending them to the nurse. Investigators wrote that they considered the failure to intervene or provide medical evaluations to students who were hit — hard enough to leave handprints, according to witnesses — to be a form of discrimination against the autistic students.
Henry said that Yanni told him during a meeting in February that a witness to the abuse they interviewed was unreliable, and that the issue was a personality conflict among staff, and then there was no abuse in the classroom.
Henry called on Yanni to resign. “What else don’t we know?” he asked.
Jessica Steinberg said her sixth grader has autism, and although her family has had a “fantastic” experience in the district, the reports from Jamison have made her lose trust.
The trust that special needs parents place in those who work with their kids is “the only thing you have that can get you through the day,” Steinberg said. If you can’t trust them, “you have nothing.”
Jim Pepper, a school board member whose son was among those reportedly abused at Jamison, echoed Steinberg’s comments about the faith that parents of kids with disabilities place in school staff. “We get up at 3 a.m., staring at the ceiling worrying about it.”
Pepper highlighted the people and institutions he believes played a role in allowing the alleged abuse to continue, including the assistant superintendent, Nadine Garvin, Yanni, and the teacher’s union, which nonprofit investigators wrote had advised the accused teacher not to participate in the nonprofit’s investigation.
“They sent my son and three other defenseless children back into that room to be abused and did not care,” Pepper said. He also thanked the support staff union for standing behind the whistleblower, who first reported the abuse in November.
Nonprofit investigators found that a “culture of fear and retaliation” at Jamison and among the Central Bucks administration allowed the abuse in the Jamison classroom to persist.
Central Bucks puts superintendent on leave
Assistant Superintendent Charles Malone — who had been helping to oversee Jamison after that principal was placed on leave last month in the wake of the abuse allegations — will take over as substitute superintendent, the district announced Thursday.
Yanni will remain on leave pending a separate investigation approved by the school board earlier this year that is still in progress, Gibson said.
The school board did not place the superintendent on leave when concerns that the district had mishandled the investigation first came to light in January, and the superintendent in turn did not place any of the subordinates involved in the investigation on leave. Since then, multiple staffers had expressed concern that administrators could retaliate against them while they remained in their positions, according to the Disability Rights Pennsylvania report.
The report recommended that the school board take disciplinary action against Yanni and other administrators.
In comments at the end of the meeting, Gibson, Vice President Heather Reynolds, and board member Dana Foley expressed their outrage over the “heartbreaking” allegations, and indicated that they had pushed for the board to put Yanni on leave sooner. Pepper suggested that those three board members, along with Daniel Kimicata, had supported putting the superintendent on leave, while the other four had not.
Foley said that she was already aware of some of the findings from the nonprofit’s report, but that some were new.
“I advocated for leave of personnel,” Gibson said. “I will do everything I can to make sure those who are accountable will be held accountable.”
Yanni stepped into the superintendent job last summer with hopes of unifying a district known for contentious school politics.
Board approves new assistant superintendent
The school board also approved a new assistant superintendent for elementary education. Helen Sclama Zaleski, the current principal at Titus Elementary, will take over for Nadine Garvin, who is retiring.
Zaleski will finish out the school year at Titus. The district is now seeking to fill the Titus principal position.
Jess Rohan can be reached at [email protected].
This article originally appeared on Bucks County Courier Times: Central Bucks parents speak out about Jamison child abuse allegations
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